Ideas for Giving Tuesday

Even though Wheelhouse is (technically) a for-profit business, we aren’t one living comfortably in our culture of buy-buy-buy. Anyone who’s been our customer probably knows that. We often come up with creative repair ideas that keep a bike rolling rather than suggesting a new one. We consistently come up with repair-rather-than-replace solutions in our service department. It’s, as we say, just how we roll.

To us, the whole greedy “BUY SOMETHING SPEND MONEY” week that follows Thanksgiving is, frankly, gross. It kinda feels like Small Business Saturday and Giving Tuesday are honorable mention ribbons given out to ameliorate the crassness of all the other days surrounding them.

But here we are, living in our current reality.

In the “spirit” of that, here’s a list of some charities to consider giving to today — or any day. They’re not all bike-related, but they’re all things we believe in.

Of course we gotta start with local bike organizations:

• Sign up to volunteer or donate a bike that’s gathering dust to Free Bikes 4 Kidz, who’s donated almost 8,000 refurbished bikes to kids in Detroit in just 4 years.

• Back Alley Bikes focuses on youth cycling education. They take bike stuff and of course, cash is always appreciated.

• Detroit Greenways Coalition advocates for bike infrastructure — and comprehensively documents it.

• The League of Michigan Bicyclists focuses on statewide legislation that benefits safer cycling — like the “3 Foot Safe Passing” rule that recently became state law.

Onto a few of our favorite things: Detroit Parks! The Detroit Parks Coalition is an umbrella organization working to expand resources for city parks. Give to DPC or drill down to one of their member organizations, which include People for Palmer Park, Friends of Rouge Park, Chandler Park Conservancy, Clark Park Coalition, and Detroit Riverfront Conservancy.

Other local outside initiatives to consider are Detroit Outdoors, who works to connect more youth of color to activities such as camping, and the Detroit Audubon Society who of course, is all about our birds.

For the children: Detroit Area Youth Uniting Michigan (DAYUM tees are the best!) are youth activists fighting for justice in our communities — for example, clean drinking water in schools. We also admire and support the efforts of Girls Rock Detroit, InsideOut Literary Arts, Downtown Boxing Gym, and Mosaic Youth Theater — all empowering Detroit kids in their own way.

Bridging Communities does everything from elder support to running a neighborhood pantry and fridge to a resident-supported Time Bank.

There are so many amazing organizations working in the realm of animal rescue. We’re picking Rebel Dogs Detroit to shout out due to a personal interaction Kelli had with them this year.

Preservation Detroit, because we’re still over here losing our architectural heritage.

For their herculean efforts to bring Proposal 3 to victory: ACLU of Michigan and Planned Parenthood of Michigan.

And last but not least, Detroit Justice Center, because if the justice system doesn’t work for everyone, it doesn’t work period.