Alan Spooner here, interim Development Director for the Bicycle Coalition and long time fan and supporter of our youth cycling program (BCYC). I was speaking with a fellow fan and supporter the other day about the challenges the program faces. Namely, we have geared up and are ready to go – but we’re not sure if we have enough gas in the tank for the coming season.
Donate to this campaign now.
Covid contracted the program participation, naturally, as an after school athletic program had to move to a mostly virtual effort due to restrictions. We’ve bounced back steadily in participation level, and now under the leadership of our new BCYC Program Director Lana Harshaw we’re poised to return to more-than-robust participation levels this Spring. The core team is growing, the All Star team roster will expand, as will our Youth Advisory Council, where our young athletes have a voice in the program and learn organizational skills along the way. We hope to launch a new Tri Allstar program, can Cross racing be far behind?
All of which means more programming expense – and there’s the rub. We experienced a $20,000 corporate sponsorship gap last year. This year we need to raise money now in order to support our burgeoning program in the Spring.
Hearing this, my fellow fan and supporter suggested he make a $2,000 matching gift as a challenge to inspire more gifts to BCYC this holiday season. Anyone making a gift to this campaign will double their impact, and provide new opportunities for our community’s youth to learn leadership skills on and off the bike.
I expressed my gratitude to my fellow fan. He expressed his wishes to remain anonymous. No problem. I’m grateful that he chose to help us with this gap, and bring others along for the ride. I hope that our fellow fans will join us by making a tax deductible gift to BCYC to help them gear up again.
Though the racing days of my fellow fan and I are over, we’ve seen the results that this program brings – confident youth ready to conquer the challenges of health, mind, academics, and career. I’ve never witnessed the kind of changes I’ve seen this program inspire in youth. And, there’s bikes! If you’ve never seen the energy, competition, and pure joy this program brings, I invite you to sign up for BCYC news so you can be alerted to events like our next Criterium and Time Trials tentatively scheduled for May 11th.
We want to see those athletes well coached, well biked, and geared up for the future. In order to have that happen, I’m asking you to make a gift now. My fellow fan and I are looking to our BCGP and BCYC family in consideration of a ‘double your impact’ gift this holiday season.
Make a gift in support now at this link. The future thanks you!
Alan Spooner
Interim Development Director