veteran sr2s instructor looking for volunteer opportunities!

[Molly Notarianni]

hi there!

I was at a WBWC Share the Road forum a few months ago, and heard that
someone was working on starting a Safe Routes to School program in Ann
Arbor. i had to duck out of the meeting before I had a chance to meet
that person, but have been thinking about it again as fall is drawing
near.

I recently moved back to Ann Arbor from Portland, OR, where I worked
for several different nonprofits teaching youth bike education. Most
recently, I was a Safe Routes to School instructor for the Bicycle
Transportation Alliance. Teaching kids cycling/basic bike mechanics
is one of my favourite things to do, and I miss it so very much! I
wanted to let you know I'd love to volunteer to help in any way (an
extra body on group rides? a volunteer instructor?), and also let you
know that I"ve got binders full of bikey curriculum for kids, if you
ever need any ideas.

I manage the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, so my schedule can be somewhat
flexible on non-market days (ie, I could volunteer on weekday
afternoons).

thanks so much! keep up the good work!

Molly Notarianni

molly_no...@hotmail.com

[Lily Guzman]

Hi Molly,

Thanks for sharing your interest in working on Safe Routes to School
projects! I am sorry that I have not responded to you earlier but now
that school is back in session and Walk to School Day is around the
corner, Safe Routes is again at the top of my list. I work with the
county's health department and am a board member with the Washtenaw
Biking and Walking Coalition.

I wanted to let you know that there is a bike rodeo planned for
Carpenter Elementary on Saturday, Sept. 20, from 10-12 noon. I'm
betting that conflicts with your farmers' market duties, but if for
some reason you are available you are welcome to join us. Volunteers
are gathering at 8:30 a.m. at the Carpenter parking lot to set up the
bike rodeo course. Alternatively, if you'd like to send lessons
learned or suggestions on how to make the event a success, feel free
to share your knowledge. (If there are others who are intersted in
participating in this, please let me know as well!)

Also, there will be Walk to School Day (October 8) events at several
Ann Arbor Schools (Eberwhite, Mitchell, Carpenter, and Thurston
Elementary -- that I know of). We will also be looking for volunteers
for that day.

Let me know your thoughts and we can talk more about how you may be
able to become more involved locally in SRTS. I'm very interested in
your experience teaching cycling safety and mechanics. I think this is
an obvious gap in our community and there has to be a way to jump
start something like this. If you're interested in talking more about
this, you may want to post it to the WBWC google groups and get a
discussion going. It is a very active and involved group as well.

Lily

On Aug 11, 9:32 am, Molly Notarianni <Molly_Notaria...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> molly_notaria...@hotmail.com

[Lily Guzman]

I also want to make sure I put in a big plug for the work already being done in the teaching kids cycling safety arena -- Programs to Educate All Cyclists http://www.bikeprogram.org/ is one of the main orgs doing this! Where I see the gap is in teaching kids bike mechanics, refurbishing used bikes, getting them back into the community, things like that. Anyone know of something like this already happening in the county or Ann Arbor specifically?