For the past four years, Dick Janson has enabled East Lansing residents to have jobs and children to build relationships — just by giving them a bike.
The operations manager at Share-a-Bike — a group that provides bicycles for adults and children who cannot afford them — Janson said they have given away more than 1,200 bikes in the past two years.
The program runs Saturdays from 9-11 a.m., but Janson said the line often forms at 8 a.m. The program is operated from the red trailers behind East Lansing Fire Department Station 1, 1700 Abbot Road.
He said the organization started when a Lansing woman collected bikes she wanted to fix up and give to neighborhood kids. She was not a mechanic, so she began looking for help from others. The group is 16 years old and entirely volunteer based.
“East Lansing provides us with the space to be there — beyond that, we’re independent, and we do what we can,” Janson said.
Recipients are allowed one bike per year and must bring in a letter from an employer, church or social organization stating their inability to afford a bike.
Manager at MSU Bikes Service Center Tim Potter said they are an informal supporter of Share-a-Bike and have been since MSU Bikes opened. They help the group in intangible ways.
Potter helped the group put together a website and refers people to the group who
can’t afford bikes from the MSU shop. In return, Share-a-Bike refers people to MSU Bikes for repairs.
“We’ve been able to help them get quite a few bikes from some of the few private, off-campus donations that we get from time to time,” he said. “They certainly need more bikes every time I talk to them.”
Janson said they are running low on bikes and some days do not have enough to give out.
“We’ll take bikes in any condition, even the ones that don’t run anymore,” he said. “Even if we can’t fix it, we take off the parts we can use.”
He said the leftover parts are sold as scrap metal, and the money is used to buy helmets. The program benefited from a $3,000 grant it received earlier this year from the Tri-County Bicycle Association, or TCBA, Janson said.
Dick Allen Lansing to Mackinaw, or DALMAC, Fund chairman for the TCBA Steven Leiby said in an email that the association passed the million dollar mark in grants awarded this year.
He said part of the money made on the annual DALMAC Bicycle Tour every Labor Day weekend is set aside to promote cycling.
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