The FeelFit Bike Hub: Our Plan to Put 150 King County Kids on Bikes
A FeelFit Community Build: 100 to 150 King County kids earn a refurbished bike, helmet, lock and lights by helping repair donated bikes. Here's the plan, the partners, and the estimated budget.
The FeelFit Bike Hub is one of our Community Builds: a short-term, hands-on project with a clear finish line. Between now and June 2027, 100 to 150 King County kids will earn a refurbished bike by helping repair donated bikes alongside trained volunteer mechanics, and each will take it home with a fitted helmet, a lock and lights.
Why Bikes, and Why the Eastside
On the Eastside, a bike is a ticket into community life: parks, trails, friends, practices and part-time jobs. Too many kids from low-income families don't have one. In the 2025–26 school year, 25% of Bellevue School District students were low-income and 438 were homeless, as were 457 students in Lake Washington School District. About 9% of Bellevue households have no car, and roughly 11,000 Bellevue, 5,600 Kirkland and 4,300 Redmond residents live below the poverty line.
We found free-bike and earn-a-bike programs serving Seattle and South King County, but none serving Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Issaquah or Sammamish, so that's where we'll start.
How It Works
- Bikes come from community donation drives and surplus channels, not purchases
- Monthly neighborhood workshop days at an Eastside community space bring kids, families and volunteers together: neighbors drop off bikes, kids learn side by side with mentors, and graduates ride out
- Between workshop days, small groups complete 15 to 25 hours of hands-on repair; each young person fixes one bike for another child, then one to keep
- Background-checked volunteer mechanics mentor small groups, with youth-protection practices in place
- Families are referred through organizations that already serve them
Learning From Those Who've Done It
We're reaching out to Bicycle Rescue for Youth, Bike Works, Cascade Bicycle Club's Major Taylor Project and Hopelink for guidance, referrals and partnership.
Estimated Budget
Our estimated year-one budget is $56,960: $25,882 in essential costs (bike parts, helmets, locks, lights, tools, storage, insurance and first aid), $22,900 in additional costs that volunteers and in-kind support can offset, and an $8,178 buffer for donation shortfalls and contingency. The full plan and budget are in the attached PDF, and you can follow our progress on the Projects page.
Sources: OSPI Washington State Report Card enrollment data, 2025–26; U.S. Census American Community Survey, 2020–2024.
Want to help? Volunteer as a mechanic or mentor, donate to the Bike Hub, or donate a bike at one of our community events.