project leader
Victor D
location
940 Garrison ave
The Bronx (Hunts Point)
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the project

Eco Ryders is an education based organization dedicated to teaching Bronx youth about the environment and social issues through workshops and skateboard design. Our goal in Eco Ryders is to break the sense of normalized operation from our student’s minds. We use field trips, class-like discussions, films, guest speakers and skateboards as tools to reach these goals. In order to improve our ability to reach students and get more funding, we are working with the Green Workers Cooperative to take classes to improve our knowledge of the fundraising world. In order to participate in these classes, we have to raise $3,400. 

We teach participants how to design skateboards using stencils and chemically safe spray paints. Skateboards themselves can be considered to be very environmentally friendly as a form of transport. They emit no harmful chemicals and are a great way to workout, the exercise aspect of the skateboards would allow the program to address the issue of high obesity and lack of public transportation in the Hunts Point area.

Meet Victor, the Project Leader: http://youtu.be/LvPWty306Qo

the steps

Aside from using basic outreach in order to achieve our goals, we will be selling skate boards. The skate boards we sell will be blank design-less ones (we will sell them for $25) and hand-painted custom boards ($70-100). We will also be asking for donations from friends and family. We also plan to raffle off 3 hand-painted boards. To sell these boards, we will open up online accounts on Amazon.com and eBay. We will also go to skate parks and set up an event where we can raffle them off .

When we are up and running (i.e. after we attend the Green Workers Cooperative Academy), the actual Eco Ryders Program will run for 3 months, 2 days a week. The program runs for three months during the summer 2 days a week for youth 13 to 19.

why we're doing it

Our goal in Eco Ryder is educating youth about community and global issues and showing them how it all connects, the least we expect from our students is for them to leave the program with a knew found clarity about the issues that surround them  so that they can tell others in their every day lives and spread the knowledge they gained .

As New York City residents, we get to enjoy many privileges, electricity for our homes, the ability to feel safe knowing that law breakers get sent to jail, we throw out the trash and flush our toilets and never worry about where it all goes. Although we can all reap the benefits of these systems, what of the negative effects? Who must live with the social and environmental problems that come with hosting the facilities that produce and distribute the items New York City has become dependent on?  Hunts Point is home to 11,661 residents; a large majority of these residents are Black and Hispanic. The area is host to 12 different waste transfer facilities. Hunts point handles 40% of New York’s waste. The Hunts Point food market (the second largest food market in the world) is located in Hunts Point yet the area is considered to be a food desert (an area with little or no access to fresh fruit and vegetables). Because of the food markets constant distribution of products, over fifteen thousand trucks drive though the area everyday emitting harmful chemicals like nitric oxide and hydro carbon. This is one of many reasons Hunts Point has the highest asthma rates in the United States.

During our first year of Eco Ryders, we had 15 students track their progress and the effectiveness of the program we created pre and post Eco Ryders surveys. The surveys would test their environmental knowledge, behavior and behavioral intention. After students entered the program, they increased an average of 40% in all three areas of testing. After the program ended, four students joined activist groups and 3 are coming back to the program this year to help teach the 30 new students we plan to have this summer. Not everyone who joins Eco Ryders is a skateboarder at first. Some are artists and some are interested in learning what happens in their neighborhood. But at the end of the program, no matter why they came, our students leave with newfound knowledge, love for their community, and a brand new skateboard of their own design.

budget

Registration fee for the Coop Academy: $1800
Transportation cost for travel to/from the training over the course of the year: $400

Total project cost: $2200

Third party credit card processing (3%): $66
Partial fiscal sponsorship (5% of $400): $20
ioby materials and labor: $35

Total to raise: $2,321



RAISED = $1,147
ioby Platform Fee  $35
3rd Party Credit Card Processing Fee (3%) $32
TOTAL TO DISBURSE = $1,080

 

updates

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photos

This is where photos will go once we build flickr integration

donors

  • William Z.
  • Charlotte K.
  • Anonymous
  • Noemi G.
  • Amy M.