Neighbourhood Empowerment Team: The Spoke

One of the agencies that participated was the local Neighbourhood Empowerment Team. NETs are partnerships between the City of Edmonton, Edmonton Police Service, the United Way of the Alberta Capital Region and the Family Centre that see a youth worker, a social worker, and an EPS officer, work with a community to reduce crime and the fear of crime. With the issue of the young bike thieves, the solution was to create "the spoke".

The idea behind this program, explained Kris Andreychuk, a social worker and member of the 118^th Avenue NET was to get the kids into a "bike shop" where volunteers from the Edmonton Bicycle Commuters and the neighbourhood, including police officers, teach the kids how to re-build what would otherwise be an unusable bike. The project, however, needed some start-up funding and a small grant from an ECF donor made "the spoke" possible.

With a free space available in a city-owned building, the ECF grant allowed the program to acquire the tools required for the bike repairs - with enough left over to provide snacks for the participants. After six once-a-week sessions, the kids "graduate" with a ceremony and get to keep the bikes they refurbished.

The hope is that these kids have not only learned the mechanical skills of fixing bikes but, more importantly, have built positive relationships with mentors and the police in their community.

Kris is encouraged by the response to the program both from the community and the participants. They've opened up the program to community referrals that include young people other than those considered at risk and the enthusiastic volunteer force now includes some former "graduates".

"In terms of the spoke", says Kris, "the solution really fit the need."

Edmonton Community Foundation helps connect donors with community projects. Donor Advised Funds allow fund holders the choice to provide guidance to ECF on an annual basis as to how to disburse their fund income and ECF can play a vital role by suggesting programs or agencies that may be of interest to a particular donor. There are times when a unique need emerges in the community that ECF learns about through its connections in the community. This allows flexibility allows donors to meet their philanthropic goals, even as projects emerge.