Come celebrate our Earn-A-Bike participants at a graduation party with slide show, presentations from the youth themselves, and food. 21 youth in our second summer session of Earn-A-Bike are working hard to finish their bikes while learning about their environment on daily rides, and graduation is when they get to show off their accomplishments to family and anyone from the BNB community who wants to come.

Graduation is Friday, August 13, 2010, 6pm. Food is potluck style. If you want to come give Elijah a heads up at elijah@bikesnotbombs.org or 617-522-0222 x101

Summer Earn-A-Bike so far has been a huge success! We graduated 17 students from our first session, and 3 of the graduates came back as volunteers to help us teach our second summer. An anonymous donor contributed money to buy locks for each of the program graduates. At graduation, students educated their families on topics like: asthma and air quality, climate change, bottled water, sustainable energy resources (solar and wind), sustainable transportation and planned obsolescence. They were some of the BEST presentations that we've ever had!

Summer Session #2 has 21 students currently enrolled. As we write today, students are getting ready for a ride to Franklin Park, and when they return Alan Palm from Alliance for Climate Education will present on climate change, and more importantly how we can play a positive in preventing it from getting worse.

It is also time to appreciate Youth Instructors for their help this summer, mentoring almost 40 youth through the program. We're currently providing jobs for 26 youth teachers. 22 are paid through Project YES and Boston Youth Fund funding, and 4 are volunteering. 23 are graduates themselves of our Earn-A-Bike and Girls In Action Programs. Angel Garcia, Ben Goodman and Will Myers have become exemplary leaders as they've come up through the programs, and they've all graduated high school and are looking onwards. Angel starts at Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in the Fall as a full time college student, and Ben Goodman starts at Boston University this Fall. Congratulations and thank you to all the Youth Instructors!