Aug 20, 2008 10:10 am US/Pacific
Cyclist Puts Kids on the Trail to Adventure
Jefferson Award Winner: Marilyn Price
(CBS 5)
Marilyn Price founded the non-profit Trips for Kids twenty years ago.
"Our mission is to take kids who would not otherwise have this experience on mountain bike adventures, to give them exposure to the environment, and to give them other lessons," Marilyn explains.
She got the idea after volunteering at an inner city dining room.
Marilyn says, "I realized there wasn't affordable outdoor opportunities for any of these groups."
So today, kids from various youth services programs gather at trail heads around the Bay Area. They are fitted with donated equipment and briefed on the basics of safety and road etiquette. Then.. they're off!
"Sometimes you see little rattlesnakes, you see the bobcat, you see deer, the birds, the wildflowers in the spring," Marilyn tells them. "It's just exhilarating!"
Along the way, Marilyn hope kids experience a sense of accomplishment and appreciation of the environment. Trip co-ordinator Michael Rogers sees their confidence grow with every turn in the trail.
"A lot of it is just, you know, complete self-empowerment, you know?" Michael says. "Biking is such a wonderful metaphor for life and it's just kind of a great life lesson."
These days, Trips for Kids leads fifteen hundred trips a year through 64 chapters across the country.
To help cover the costs for trips for kids, Marilyn started a bicycle thrift shop in San Rafael. Now The ReCyclery pays for over half of all her programs. Volunteers restore bikes for resale, and in a near by warehouse, kids earn credit toward their own bikes while learning valuable skills in maintenance and repair.
Marilyn credits the hundreds of volunteers who make the program work, and who like her, share a love for the bicycle.
"You are on these two wheels and you're balancing and the world is going by," she says with a smile. "I've never stopped loving it and I don't think I've ever stopped cycling."
For putting kids on the trail to outdoor adventure, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Marilyn Price.
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