By Glen Rumbaugh, Education Operations Coordinator
UMB Bank not only allows but encourages their team members to volunteer time helping nonprofit organizations like BikeWalkKC. To celebrate Bike Month, on Tuesday, May 16th, seven energetic and enthusiastic volunteers from UMB came to our office to assist with our twice-a-year BLAST bicycle fleet maintenance checks. We now have 128 BLAST bicycles in our fleet, so performing a 12-step maintenance check on each bike can be very time consuming. Thanks to these UMB volunteers, we were able to knock out quite a few bikes in a single afternoon!
Fellow “wrenchers” and BikeWalkKC education instructors Glen, Mark, David, and Suzanne gave our volunteers a brief “how to” session, then split into four groups and dug in. The volunteers learned a few tricks they can use to maintain their own bikes as well. One BIG and LOUD lesson-learned: never overfill a bike tube using an air compressor…BANG!!
Judging by all the laughing and jovial conversation, a good time was had by all. One volunteer even remarked that this was the “coolest volunteering event ever!”
Once again a big THANKS to the volunteers from UMB!
For information on how you and your organization can participate in BikeWalkKC’s volunteer events, sign up for our newsletter or contact Karen Campbell at karen.campbell@bikewalkkc.org.