My name is Alex Miller and I will be spending 10 weeks this Spring setting up a community enterprise in Frome, Somerset. There will be a team of 10 of us working on a challenge to establish a community bike workshop for public use with the intent of encouraging sustainable transport and increased public health and wellbeing.
Edventure Frome runs free courses helping young adults to move towards livelihoods that matter to them. One of my dreams is to create a start-up that I can see flourish and impact the community in a positive way. Grass roots change builds community connection and inspires others to feel empowered to do the same. I believe that by helping me to reach my fundraising target, you will not only be helping us to start up this bike workshop project but you will be helping me gain invaluable experience that I will be able to utilise for future community projects.
Community bike workshops are radical, they exist because they are needed. Radical that they serve the poor where capitalism and the state fail to cover those needs. Radical because what you pay is often based on need. Radical because they could not exist without mutual aid, volunteer time and donations. Radical sadly, because they challenge both the idea that things can be free, and that everything needs to be paid for. Radical because they often provide a place of refuge for mental illness and the dispossessed. When contributing to something as humble as a community bike workshop you are contributing to a radical, people focused and sustainably driven movement and bearing the torch for the power of collective change whilst strengthening human resilience in a time where adversity affects many.
