Teens Thrive with Build & Ride

Program, Teens Grow Together

PROFILE: Who's Behind Build & Ride?

Ride Benefits Youth Program and More

Junior Ambassador Looks Back

City Focuses on Bike Lane Maintenance

Grants Fuel Advocacy Efforts

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PROFILE: The People Behind Build & Ride

By Floyd MIttleman

Meet some of the people behind Chicagoland Bicycle Federation’s Build & Ride program:

David Sinski is executive director of After School Matters, which offers not only the Build & Ride curriculum that Chicagoland Bicycle Federation administers, but a variety of other apprenticeships in technology, communications, arts, sports and dance. It includes 35 schools and 50 community-based organizations such as the YMCA and Chicago Youth Centers.

With a master’s degree in counseling from Northeastern Illinois University and an undergraduate degree in psychology, Sinski understands the need for positive youth development programs for teens directed by caring and knowledgeable adults. Sinski works with 400 instructors. Thirty-five high schools and 50 community-based organizations, like CBF, are involved.

Charlie Tribe is program manager for Sports 37 at the Chicago Park District. It was Tribe who hired and placed the first 10 Junior Ambassadors last year. This year, Tribe placed 11 Junior Ambassadors plus five Lake Front Trail Ambassadors, who do outreach to bicyclists and trail users of all ages. A graduate of North Park University, she has worked for the park district for 23 years, serving as physical instructor, a program specialist, a park supervisor and, now, a program manager.

So who molds these youngsters into Bicycling Ambassadors? Chicagoland Bicycle Federation’s own Eve Jennings, who started out as a Bicycle Ambassador herself in 2002 before becoming program manager of Mayor Daley’s Bicycling Ambassadors, which is housed at the Chicago Department of Transportation. Jennings has a dual major – Spanish and Anthropology – from the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana. Jennings sees to it that the Junior Ambassadors are as adept at outreach as their adult Ambassador counterparts. The Ambassadors educate motorists on how to share the road with cyclists, they teach children bicycle safety, and show the many benefits of bicycling.

Floyd Mittleman is a volunteer Bike Traffic contributor