Youth mountain biking scholarship and grants available

By Reader Staff

Sandpoint’s local cycling club, Pend Oreille Pedalers, is offering three sessions of youth programming in 2023, starting with five weeks of after-school mountain biking clinics running from May 8-June 8.Two weeks of summer mountain bike camps will run from Aug. 21-Sept. 1, and after-school clinics will resume in late September for another five weeks in the fall.

The twice-weekly after-school program allows kids from the greater Sandpoint area to receive instruction from POP’s experienced mountain biking coaches on the trails of Pine Street Woods and VTT — properties within the greater Syringa Trail System just west of town where POP has built more than 10 miles of new trail since 2019.

Now in their fourth year, POP’s after-school programs have served more than 200 children aged 7-12 since 2020. Starting in 2022, POP began a scholarship program that included free tuition and brand-new mountain bikes granted to six kids from Farmin Stidwell and Washington elementary schools. Supported by a $2,500 grant from the Litehouse Giving Fund, the 2022 scholarship program introduced the lifelong sport of mountain biking to six kids who otherwise might not have had the opportunity to participate.

In August 2022, POP hosted a movie night fundraising event at Matchwood Brewing, which drew more than 200 community members out to support the 2023 scholarship program, successfully raising more than $8,800 in the process.

With the recommitment of Litehouse to supporting POP’s scholarship program for another year, the club was able to order 15 high-end Trek mountain bikes through Outdoor Experience, and is all set to grow the scholarship and bike grant program in the new year.

“The goal of our youth scholarship and bike grant program is to increase equity in access to outdoor recreation in Bonner County,” stated POP Executive Director Jason Welker. “After two years of offering youth programs, we noticed that most of the kids signing up were from families that were already into mountain biking and whose parents could afford nice bikes and to transport them to and from Pine Street Woods.”

By offering scholarships and bike grants, Welker added, the club is fulfilling a part of its mission that describes “expanding opportunities for mountain biking and cycling.”

After-school youth programs and summer camps are not the only examples of how POP is expanding access to opportunities for cycling. According to Welker, POP will lead fundraising, planning, design and construction efforts for a mountain bike skills park within Sandpoint’s Travers Park this year.

“Late last year, the POP Board approached city staff and asked if there was any interest in the club leading an effort to bring a modern bike skills park to Sandpoint,” stated Welker, who also serves on the Sandpoint City Council. “Parks staff enthusiastically replied ‘yes,’ and after several meetings, a presentation to City

Council and a resolution offering the city’s support for the project, POP was given the green light to fulfill a component of the city’s Parks Master Plan that the city itself had no funds or capacity to complete.”

Since January, POP has applied for four separate grants to fund design and construction of the half-acre skills park, and plans to launch a community fundraising campaign later this spring. The goal is to have a modern skills park, including prefabricated wood features, completed in Travers Park by the end of September 2023.

Registration for POP’s youth programs opens on Saturday, April 1. Scholarship applications can be submitted now and will be reviewed in April, with recipients being notified by the end of the month.

To learn more about POP’s youth programs, including how to apply for a scholarship, go to pendoreillepedalers. org/programs. To read more about the skills park project, or to contribute to the fundraising effort, go to pendoreillepedalers.org/skills-park.

March 16-23, 2023

THURSDAY, march 16