What have we done?

The West Virginia Cycling Foundation does more than just put on a century ride. In fact the century ride is primarily an identity/fundraising venture. While the benefits of doing the ride accrue to the riders who participate, it is an even greater benefit to the programs the ride helps fund. One such program is the PARK project in Parkersburg, WV. It is best described by the entity running the project – Adventure Pursuit. Kim Broughton, the CEO of Adventure Pursuit, describes the project and how it came about below.

“About 5 years ago an employee of Wood county schools contacted us and asked for our help in a health screening program they had started for 5th graders. They had already identified children in the 5th grade who were exhibiting the warning signs of diabetes because of their level of inactivity. They were telling the children they needed to get active but felt it was a void in the program not to have more direction in helping children find activity opportunities. They asked if we had any information we could share.

We seized the opportunity to partner with the schools and created a program known as Fit Kids. We gathered folks who would go with us into a physical education class to teach their activity “passion”. We brought a lot of bikes, big wheels, scooters, skateboards, flying turtles, a kayak and a really good stunt bike rider to show the students what was possible and how much fun it was to be physically active. We taught physical education classes like this for 3 years to a total of 6000 grade school students. I call it my time of extensive focus group research.

For 3 years, while performing in the Fit Kid Show, I led the question and answer segment of the show. It involved teaching a small bit of knowledge to the children via a physically-interactive quiz. It required a lot of feedback from the children. After awhile, the obstacles that prevented these children from being more active were obvious. They were obvious because they told me what they were. No matter what school I was in, whether it was rural or urban, rich or poor, no matter what, the children told me the same things over and over again. I feel I have a message from the children in Parkersburg that no one has been in the unique position to hear, except for the staff of the Fit Kid show.

We have since discontinued the Fit Kid show and are now focusing our energies on removing the obstacles the students have asked us to fix through the implementation of a program we call PARK.

PARK is all about being in the streets of neighborhoods, literally, and finding and resolving the issues that stand in the way of people being active in their own streets. One of the stated goals of the PARK program is to deal with infrastructure issues such as no bike lanes. We have received $42,000 in grant funding thus far for the implementation of the PARK project. $5000 of that is from the WV Cycling Foundation. It is money they granted us that was earned because of the Cheat Mountain Challenge.

The connection with the Cheat Mountain Challenge started when I rode it last year. I was overwhelmed by the support I received from the volunteers, a bicycle club known as the Mountain State Wheelers. What a gift they made to the Cheat Mountain Challenge last year through their incredible support. I have managed an event for ten years and have only dreamed of having the kind of volunteers the Wheelers provided. The impact the Wheelers had on me as a participant of the event touched me so much that it drove me to see who was behind such a wonderful event. That led me to the WV Cycling Foundation and a conversation with Dave Pray which eventually led to a grant to assist us in the biking component of PARK.

The biking component of PARK is entirely based on a goal of attendance to the Cheat Mountain Challenge either as a participant or a volunteer. We are working in two neighborhoods in Parkersburg; one neighborhood is public housing with 300 children and 150 adults.

Our biking program is called Riding to Snowshoe. We are basically setting up a riding program that will allow folks to earn a trip to the Cheat Mountain Challenge. We know most of our participants will not be ready to ride the event and intend to bring them as volunteers so that they can witness “an event unlike anything they have ever seen before”.

We have made tremendous strides in Parkersburg already in regard to safety issues in the community. We kicked off the PARK program May 10th and already a Bike Council has been formed in Parkersburg that is organized by us and contains members of the City, the City police, representatives from biking organizations, interested citizens, etc. A city councilman heard of our project and contacted me and voiced his financial support and support to change any laws or ordinances that may get in our way.”

Sincerely,

Kim Broughton
Executive Director
Adventure Pursuit