At NWSS, one good turn leads to another: Students fix bikes for kids
CBC TV videographer Martin Diotte prepares to interview students Perry Lemieux and Ayden Cummins. Students in teacher Dan Lee’s Bike Maintenance class are donating wheels for kids and families… The CBC news segment is at 45:12.
Bicycle maintenance course leads to bike donation initiative…
The wheels first began turning when trades teacher Dan Lee introduced a new course at New Westminster Secondary School last year teaching students bicycle maintenance.
From there, it was a short journey to go from fixing wheels to donating them to kids and families who could use them.
For students Ayden Cummings and Perry Lemieux, both avid mountain bikers and both enrolled in the bike maintenance course, their love of the sport is something they’re happy to share.
With up to 100 bicycles in storage at NWSS – donated by Gordon Hobbis, owner of Cap’s Bicycles in Sapperton, as well as by teachers and parents – there are plenty of bikes that can be fixed 
by students and used by kids who couldn’t otherwise afford one. That includes everything from kids’ bikes and mountain bikes to older road bikes.
The campaign to donate bicycles garnered the attention last week of The New Westminster Record and a visit from CBC TV to highlight the students’ generosity.
CBC TV videographer Martin Diotte dropped in on the bike class, chatted with students, and got a tour of Lee’s bike repair and welding class from Shawn Lichtmann, head of the NWSS bike club.
The segment aired on CBC’s evening News Hour Jan. 11, 2018 (at the 45:12 mark)– with students Cummins and Lemieux advising listeners to “ride your bike and be active!”
As trades teacher Dan Lee explained to CBC and The Record, the hope is to spread the word so that refurbished bikes will get to deserving recipients.
Anyone who knows of kids and families who could use a set of wheels is asked to contact Lee at dlee@sd40.bc.ca
Grad 12 student Renegie Lampong repairs a kid’s bike for donation…
A strong connection between NWSS and the community…
Lee said the bike donation campaign speaks to the huge connection between the school and the community. It also helps students “get out of their own sphere of reality” to think about helping others.
Lee said the bike maintenance course at NWSS is practical, useful and develops real-world skills and knowledge to help students respond to everyday needs and problems.
“I just felt kids would be interested and hopefully it will continue to grow.”
The course was approved by the New Westminster Schools Board of Education last year. The ability to address practical problems and apply skills and technologies is a key emphasis in BC’s new “Applied Design, Skills and Technology” (ADST) curriculum. The ADST approach is shedding new understanding on traditional courses – like welding and carpentry– as experiential, hands-on programs of learning that emphasize the ability to identify an issue, develop designs and prototypes, test them, and use appropriate tools, technologies and materials for production.
The curriculum draws on skills and concepts from traditional and First Peoples practice; from the existing disciplines of Business Education, Home Economics, Information Technology, and Technology Education; and from new and emerging fields.
At New Westminster Schools, Applied Design, Skills and Technologies curriculum is now beginning to be implemented across the spectrum – from kindergarten through grade 12.
Trades teacher Dan Lee tells CBC TV about the opportunity to share student-repaired bicycles with the community by contacting him at dlee@sd40.bc.ca