Sterling Spinners Bicycle Club

Bikes broaden the lives of local at-risk youth

By Steve Baker

If you’ve spent time on the Swamp Rabbit Trail recently, you know it is being used by thousands of Upstate cyclists, runners and walkers every week. The trail’s smooth pavement and beautiful scenery have helped attract quite a few people to the sport of cycling, many for the first time. Some of the new people you pass riding bikes with big smiles on their faces might be the members of a group called the Sterling Spinners.

The Sterling Spinners is a bicycle club for middle school students in the Sterling community in Greenville. The club is the result of some forward thinking Upstate leaders who were looking for ways to improve communities in our area. The group was attending the Riley Institute’s Diversity Leadership Initiative at Furman University – where business, government and academic leaders learn to embrace diversity in a very broad sense. Pamela Jamarick was part of the nine-person team that developed the Sterling Spinners concept for their 2010 DLI capstone project.

“We wanted to focus on improving the lives of children of incarcerated parents,” says Jamarick, Director of Diversity for Michelin North America. “We also wanted to help fight the growing problem of childhood obesity and chronic diseases by educating these children about health and fitness. From the very beginning, the program was intended to be about more than just riding bikes. We thought that it could build members’ self-esteem and confidence.”

The group targeted the predominantly African-American Sterling community because of the disproportionately large incidence of adult-onset diabetes in that population, and they recruited partners to help. “We came up with the idea, but we needed help in making the program sustainable,” says Jamarick. Her group enlisted the support of David Taylor and the Building Dreams mentoring program from Clemson University.

“We worked with Sylvia Vandross at the Sterling Community Center to recruit 10 students that first year,” says Taylor. “She helped us get connected to the kids, provided us with a place to store the bikes, and somewhere to do classroom education on bike safety and healthy living. Thanks to the great support of LiveWell Greenville, St. Francis Hospital, The Great Escape, the Greenville Spinners and some others, we were able to accommodate everyone that was interested in joining that first year.”

Taylor contacted the Greenville Spinners for cycling support and expertise. The Greenville Spinners Bicycle Club is made up of nearly 600 local men and women who love to ride and want to serve as advocates for cycling. Several members volunteered to help, including avid cyclist and bicycle racer Tim Granger. Taylor relied on Granger’s expertise and enthusiasm to help educate and motivate the kids in the club, and he’s participated ever since.

“It didn’t take long for me to realize what a great program this was,” says Granger. “There is a lot of talk out there about doing the right thing and solving societal problems, but we need more action. I had adult influences in my youth, and I remember the impact they made. Kids need positive influences in their lives. I love spending time with these kids, and I think I get just as much out of it as they do.”

The Sterling Spinners members quickly learned what the bicycle could do for them. They traveled farther than they ever had before, exploring new sections of town all under their own power. They gained independence, and some of them experienced a real sense of ownership and responsibility for the first time in their lives. They developed such a sense of camaraderie that they didn’t want to stop riding together at the end of the summer.

“We intended for the club to be a summer program, but everyone was having so much fun that they didn’t want to stop getting together after school started again,” says Taylor. “We kept on riding and doing club activities right on through the school year. It was a huge success.”

Now in its third year, the Sterling Spinners participates in many activities, on and off the bike. In addition to their rides around town, they have traveled by car to Clemson University and to a Youth-In-Government event in Columbia. They have attended a Furman football game, and recently took the Red Cross CPR certification course as a group.

The club is not just for middle schoolers anymore either. Some members have enjoyed the experiences so much, they have stuck with the club into their high school years. “The oldest are now juniors, and we plan to see them through graduation,” says Taylor. “We are now up to 20 kids and five adults in the club. These kids are seizing their future – a future with an active lifestyle that’s vibrant and healthy.”

It’s hard to measure just how important the club is to some members. Lakita Cowens, whose son Malachi is now a proud Sterling Spinners member, says that being in the bike club has made all the difference. Malachi was having a very difficult time in school before he became a member. “The bike club has really changed him. Now he’s an A/B honor roll student. He’s in more activities too, not just the bike club.” Other parents are singing the same praises. This club is improving the lives of its members in a way that will hopefully last a lifetime.

The key to the club’s success appears to be the relationships building between the mentors and the students. The bike is a great way to get everyone together, but it goes far beyond pedaling along the Swamp Rabbit Trail.

The program is thriving, but they could use more resources to serve more kids. Granger summarizes what’s needed in one word, “Involvement! We need caring adults to consistently spend time and set positive examples that can make a difference in the lives of these kids. It’s easy and it’s fun. We just need more people to make it a priority.”

If you want to get involved with the Sterling Spinners, please contact David Taylor at dtaylor@clemson.edu or 864-250-4667. You will have a real impact on the children you help, and the children may have an amazing influence on you in return.