Lansing Bike Co-op 10-year anniversary celebration

“If you would’ve told me 10 years ago that I’d still be here and that we’d own the building, it's an achievement. It means there's some real long-term stability for the organization, which is what I’ve been building to this whole time,” said Lansing Bike Co-op director Aaron Fields, who co-founded the all-volunteer nonprofit with a group of friends in March 2013. On Saturday (Sept. 21), Fields will sign the final mortgage check and officially pay off the co-op’s building at 1715 E. Kalamazoo St., and the public is invited to celebrate from noon to 4 p.m. with free food, shop tours, bingo and live music. The co-op’s monthly “alley cat” bicycle scavenger hunt will start at 2 p.m. 

Last week, one of the co-op’s windows was smashed with a rock. While Fields is hopeful the window will be repaired by this weekend, he’s not too concerned about it.

“I’m a little annoyed, but I imagine it was someone who wasn't even thinking two seconds ahead of what they were doing,” he said. “We put up a post on Facebook to help repair the window, and the community responded.” 

Fields said that over the past 10 years, the co-op has given away “at least 700” children’s bicycles during its annual holiday bike drive and has repaired a few thousand bikes with community members. Looking ahead to the next decade, he’d like to see the organization continue its steady growth.

“Now that we’ve got a good place in the community, we have the opportunity to do other things, like expand classes and make some capital improvements,” he said.