INTERVIEW: Bellows Falls Community Bike Projects’ Founding Director Bonnie Anderson
by Don Dawson
An interview with Bellows Falls Community Bike Projects’ Founding Director Bonnie Anderson
Welcome to our WOOL newsletter and this month’s community interview. This past week, we sat down with Founding Director, Bonnie Anderson. Since 2013, the BF Community Bike Project has been providing access to bicycles and a more active lifestyle to the entire Rockingham region. They provide used bicycle sales, training on bicycle repair and help support safe bicycling in and around their community, The Bike Project just wrapped up their major fundraiser in an effort to purchase the building that they currently operate in. If you’d like to make a donation or possibly volunteer, you can get more information from their website – https://bfbike.org/.
WOOL: Thanks for taking the time to chat with us here at WOOL. We can start with an easy one – what led you to start The Bike Project?
Bonnie Anderson: I did a little bit of volunteering with a bike project up in Burlington when I lived there. It was called Bike Recycle Vermont and now it’s called Old Spokes Home. Actually, the guy who started it, Ron Manganiello, is a friend of mine, and I just really loved what they were doing. He started it initially to get bikes to new Americans, refugees coming from various countries and then it kind of took off from there. So when I came down here, I saw the need. I had only lived here two or three months and I thought, we need to see more bikes. I saw a lot of kids who didn’t seem to have much to do. Not a lot of kids riding bikes and saw a lot of obesity, and I just thought it would be a good thing to do.
WOOL: It’s been a bit of a cultural shift, from the standpoint of some 50 years ago. Kids lived on their bikes. I mean part of it now is that families wouldn’t allow their children to leave the house at 8:00 in the morning and come home at 10:00 at night.
BA: Yeah, that’s changed. And the streets aren’t as safe.
WOOL: Yeah, that too.
BA: Plus cars are bigger now as well. It was a different time. I remember the same thing, riding all day long.
WOOL: So t
hat leads you to here. What year do you actually kick the Bike Project off in this location?
BA: Ohh here?
WOOL: Oh, you weren’t here first?
BA: No. We started out on Canal Street, opened our doors in September of 2013. And so, this past September we celebrated 10 years. During the course of 2012, it was all just talking to people and figuring things out and getting ideas. And then the board was formed, just five of us in January 2013. And then I kind of got the ball rolling with outreach. Just talking to people and getting the word out. But also, we had our first fundraiser that May. We showed the movie “Breaking Away” at the Opera House and it was really successful. A lot of people showed up, I mean it wasn’t packed, but a lot of people came out and that just really kicked off the the energy. And we also had a community meeting. We held it at the middle school to bring the community together, share information, eat some pizza and generate ideas. We talked about what we wanted to do and we actually got some volunteers who still are with us, either volunteering or supporting, doing bike rides and coming to events.
WOOL: And then you move here in….?
BA: In the summer of 2016, so we’ve been here almost eight years.
WOOL: And are you still looking for volunteers? Is that something you actively do?
BA: Always. Yeah, we don’t actively. I mean, I’m not reaching out every day, or even every week. But we do reach out. I post it now and then. And we have some regulars right now. We have a guy who comes every Friday. They come and go. Sometimes you’ll get someone who’s really regular for a while and then then whatever reason, will drop off.
WOOL: So, you just held your major fundraiser this past weekend. What are your takeaways from the event?
BA: I definitely felt that we were very supported, and that people were excited for us. I felt a new level of energy with the volunteers. You know, we have a few new volunteers and one of them also just became a new board member. I feel that this event helped us reach the next level for the organization.
WOOL: Well, that is a really big step (referring to the purchase of the building that the Bike Project is currently located in).
BA: Yeah. Buying a building.
WOOL: So, you have this wonderful anonymous donor willing to double your donations (up to $10,000). Did you hit your goal to obtain that match?
BA: No, we’re not counting money that comes in from ticket sales and and bidding (portion of the fundraiser event – it was a silent auction).
WOOL: So how much closer are you to the goal?
BA: We are halfway to the $10,000. And this week I’m gonna do some blasts and make a concerted effort on that. But one thing I want to clarify is, that I’m not an owner and I know you probably didn’t mean that. Because a nonprofit can’t be owned by anybody. So I am the director. I like to say founding director, I don’t like the sound of executive director, or CEO.
WOOL: Was it also in 2013 that you filed for your 501c3?
BA: No, we got that in 2015. And we were under the umbrella of Sustainable Valley Group at first. They’re the ones who have that building on Island Street (in Bellows Falls). It’s an incubator building, just up the hill from the train station, across from what used to be Robinson paper mill. They’ve been very involved on the island, helping small businesses get started.
WOOL: Not only are you the Founding director of the Bellows Falls BIke Project but you also come from a musical background of sorts and with your discipline being percussion, is that right?
BA: Yeah, that’s true.
WOOL: Well, your whole family was musical, no? So who is the leader of the of the family band?
BA: That’s pretty funny. We did used to play together years ago. So we played together whenever possible.
WOOL: Going back far, how far, like, were you all playing in like high school?
BA: Oh, yeah. We had a band, actually. There was a room in the house called the Music Room. That’s where the piano was and then all kinds of other small instruments. And I wish that I started drumming way back then. I was always drumming on things. But it didn’t occur to me to take lessons. Jill and John probably usually took the lead in whatever we were doing musically, choosing the songs, and they were the lead singers.
WOOL: How many Anderson’s actually played out?
BA: Out in public?? Really…just Don, John, Jill and me. Mostly just four of us.
WOOL: So as a quartet or quintet, did you actually go out and gig?
BA: Yeah, we played some bars and some coffee houses. Wait, you’re gonna put all this in there (the interview)?
WOOL: Yeah. For sure – a piece of this, for me, is about music. It’s part of WOOL. I find it fascinating how much music plays a part in all of lives. Some more than others but in the interviews, we’ve done to date, I talked to Mitchell down at Next Chapter Records in Putney about how music played such an important part in his life. He was a schoolteacher who retired and opened a record store. I interviewed Darlene from Ciao Popolo not only because she just opened her restaurant but because she’s also really dedicated to local music. I keep trying to pull in some musical aspect of the people in our community that we talk to – I think it’s an interesting connection we all have in common. So, I’m fascinated by how music is intertwined in our lives. It’s in your upbringing. Were your parents musical?
BA: Yes, they both played piano and horns. My mom played baritone. And she wanted to learn to play Banjo. My dad played just about any horn, mostly baritone and trumpet. But piano and recorder were his main instruments. Probably piano was the biggest, but he played all different size recorders too, and had various recorder ensembles over the years.
All the years that I lived in Burlington, I was playing in Sambatucada, a street percussion band.
WOOL: I didnt’ know that.
BA: That was cool, so much fun. And they’re still going and they’re great.
WOOL: Did you busk?
BA: No, no, we would get hired to play. We would do festivals. We’d play parades and sometimes play inside at schools. We were best for an outdoor event. Sometimes we did workshops or indoor performances, but in the early years, when I first started in 1996, we had upwards of 50 or so people on it.
WOOL: Wow – That’s crazy.
BA: Yeah, So, imagine this mass of people coming down Church St. We would lead off the Jazz Festival parade and it was just incredible. It has kind of shrunk over the years. People come and go and it’s really a community band. You don’t have to have any experience to be in it, so I ended up teaching a lot because I had a lot of percussion experience. And the longer you’re in it, the more you know all the rhythms and all the breaks. And so a lot of us ended up teaching the newcomers. But that was just a blast and that that really got me into the community mindset. And also just being in Burlington where there is such a strong sense of community. I actually had that listed in my bio for a while. I don’t know if it’s still in there but i had it there because it had such a strong influence.
WOOL: You mentioned that you’re now working with a similar band down in Brattleboro?
BA: Well there is one I have played with (Samba Ganza). In fact around Carnival time, I sat in with them at Ciao Popolo because they did a big Mardi Gras thing there and that was really fun. So I occasionally sit in with them but I just don’t get down to Brattleboro much. They rehearse on Sundays and that’s my only full day off. So I haven’t committed to it.
WOOL: Do you miss that?
BA: I do, yeah, I do miss it.
WOOL: It’s almost like having a second line.
BA: Yeah kind of well i mean we didn’t have horns….
WOOL: But is sounds like it was similar. It’s more about community, like you said. It doesn’t matter whether you’re musician or not. You could go out and join the parade and just feel the beat. March alongside the music…
BA: We would get whole big crowds of people like dancing and parading behind when we’d play. Oh and the band from Brattleboro is called Samba Ganza and they play in the Saxtons River fourth of July parade each year.
WOOL: Oh right, I’ve seen them.
BA: I hardly ever play with them, but I’m happy about what they’re doing.
WOOL: But you can see the bridge between what the community-minded music and what the bike project has done. But you’ve really put your foot on the ground by purchasing this building. You’ve become an important part of this community. You’re not just helping kids but giving everyone in the community the opportunity to have access to a bicycle and be active. You must have a mission statement?
BA: Oh yeah. Our mission is to provide the Greater Falls community a space for all to access bicycles, learn bike repair, and safe riding skills. Our vision is a flourishing culture of bicycling as a means of alternative transportation, self-sufficiency, and overall Wellness.
WOOL: Has The Bike Project embraced E-bikes yet?
BA: No, we were going to but around 7 years ago, Fred and I talked about getting into the E-bike thing because we did have some people asking. So, we thought we would just seek out or at least accept use ones, fix them up, sell them. He repaired some for customers. We felt like it was too much liability and it’s also kind of a a space issue. It was a bigger undertaking to do so.
WOOL: That’s understandable. I mean they are amazing, and you see them more and more.
BA: Ohh, definitely you can tell – especially when you can see that they’re going way too fast for the amount of pedaling that they’re doing.
WOOL: So now that you’ve finished with the many details of your successful benefit auction, what do you foresee for the rest of 2024?
BA: Well, we hope the closing will be in mid-June and then once it closes, there are some improvements we want to make. So much to do. For now, getting to closing is an important milestone. We still need to focus on more fundraising before the end of April.
WOOL: Right, so you can secure the matching grant! Well, the Auction was a great step in that direction, even though only the Money Bike went to that effort. The event showed how supportive the BF community is for the Bike Project. Unfortunately, the success of Fiddler on the Roof took a little bit of your audience away (the Bellows Falls Opera House had the Wild Goose Players presentation of Fiddler on the Roof playing scheduled the time that their silent auction was scheduled).
BA: Yeah, I definitely know some people that would have attended but they had tickets for that night.
WOOL: So, do you have any other events upcoming that we should know about?
BA: We don’t have anything scheduled yet. We are most likely gonna do another one of our outdoor plant and tag sales, probably in June. Once we have a date, we’ll be sure to share it, publicize it. We’ll post it on Facebook and such. Also, one of our board members wants to start organizing group rides, which is something I’ve been wanting to happen on a regular basis for years. But I don’t have time. She’s retired, so I think it might this might be the year that finally gets accomplished. She has some really good ideas like bringing people to a location, because it’s not easy to find good rides, from right here (30 Henry Street in Bellows Falls), especially with the group. So maybe bringing people and their bikes to the different spots. The Cheshire Rail Trail is a pretty nice spot. You can get it down near Bensonwood, and now you can get it even further north than that and then take it all the way down to Keene.
WOOL: Well, it sounds like you’ll have a busy enough summer. Any other plans?
BA: Well, we want to have another volunteer appreciation day soon. Our volunteers as well as our board, have been so great, and we haven’t had one in a while. We’ll probably have some kind of celebratory thing once we own the building. It’s very important to our organization.
WOOL: We can’t thank you enough for taking time out of your schedule. Clearly you have a very full calendar at the moment. Best wishes for the upcoming events.
BA: Thanks Don!