Lansing Bike Co-op 10-year anniversary celebration

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“If you would’ve told me 10 years ago that I’d still be here and that we’d own the building, it's an achievement. It means there's some real long-term stability for the organization, which is what I’ve been building to this whole time,” said Lansing Bike Co-op director Aaron Fields, who co-founded the all-volunteer nonprofit with a group of friends in March 2013. On Saturday (Sept. 21), Fields will sign the final mortgage check and officially pay off the co-op’s building at 1715 E. Kalamazoo St., and the public is invited to celebrate from noon to 4 p.m. with free food, shop tours, bingo and live music. The co-op’s monthly “alley cat” bicycle scavenger hunt will start at 2 p.m. 

Last week, one of the co-op’s windows was smashed with a rock. While Fields is hopeful the window will be repaired by this weekend, he’s not too concerned about it.

“I’m a little annoyed, but I imagine it was someone who wasn't even thinking two seconds ahead of what they were doing,” he said. “We put up a post on Facebook to help repair the window, and the community responded.” 

Fields said that over the past 10 years, the co-op has given away “at least 700” children’s bicycles during its annual holiday bike drive and has repaired a few thousand bikes with community members. Looking ahead to the next decade, he’d like to see the organization continue its steady growth.

“Now that we’ve got a good place in the community, we have the opportunity to do other things, like expand classes and make some capital improvements,” he said.

 

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