Community bike shop expands to new location in Springfield

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - The Drew Lewis Foundation’s Community Bike Shop has helped give people living in Springfield an affordable avenue to transportation and a healthy activity for years. Now, that mission is expanding.

“The idea that biking was about transportation was one avenue of it,” said founder and CEO of the Drew Lewis Foundation Amy Blansit. “For me, seeing families together, knowing that people are biking for exercise for their health, decreasing the number of cars that are whizzing by, it’s really an entire cultural thing that I love to see happening in our community, and we want to support that any way we can.”

The Bike Shop program provides free and affordable bikes to the community as well as an educational repair and safety program.

Its new storefront helps reach more people and helps the foundation sell different kinds of bikes that support the program as well.

“What’s great about this retail location,” Blansit said, “is we really do have some great high-end bikes that get donated. We’re able to sell those at a higher price that allows us to then get more out the door in that $40 to $80 range, and we try to give as many free bikes as we can to kids.”

The new Community Bike Shop on Commercial Street will have its official grand opening later in October, but you can see it and support it at the Ride for Hope Wednesday night.

The Poker Run will start at Mother’s Brewing Company and take you throughout five stops across five miles, including both bike shops, the one at the Fairbanks and the new one on Commercial Street in the Sankofa building.

The tickets you buy for the event go towards supporting the bike shops.

“One of them is this storefront that is our retail shop,” said Blansit, “that really lets people know what we do in a way that being in a neighborhood and in the middle of the Fairbanks, maybe we’ve missed that opportunity. This second location will allow us to sell bikes out to the public. We’ll still have bikes for sale in the shop located at the Fairbanks. We’re excited to be able to provide both.”

The Poker Ride for Hope starts at 5:30 p.m. at Mother’s Brewing Company at 215 S. Grant Ave., and you can buy tickets at the event if you show up early.

If you don’t want to participate in the game, you can still join along for the ride to see the new bike shops.

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