The Lake City Bicycle Collective is poised for change.

The nonprofit, a bicycle repair shop that connects people who need them with functioning bicycles, must move to a new home by Dec. 31. It presently rents space in the basement of the First Baptist Church at 424 E. Wallace Ave., Coeur d'Alene. The 100-year-old church is in need of renovations, and the collective is in need of more space.

Director Tom Morgan is juggling relocating Lake City Bicycle Collective with completing repairs on more than 150 bikes for an annual Christmas giveaway.

“Ideally, we’d like about 3,000 square feet," Morgan said. “A restroom, maybe an office and a giant warehouse space for the workstations.”

Despite having to move, Morgan’s goal is to expand the programs already in motion.

“I feel like we could do more," he said. "I’d like to be able to employ a couple of mechanics. We work with Kootenai Recovery Community Center or Reentry Idaho, and I’d like to do more.”

The collective provides community service opportunities and partners with the Kootenai Recovery Community Center to provide work programs.

“It’s a volunteer job, but it’s like an apprenticeship,” said Tom Van Volkenburg, a full-time volunteer at the collective. “I get a chance to fix bikes of all kinds. Also, we get a chance to teach people how to do stuff. I get a chance to show kids how to fix a flat. I like showing kids how to fix stuff.”

The collective also collaborates with the Kootenai County court systems and jails to provide bikes for former inmates, Van Volkenburg said. Collective volunteers work with the Lions Club or the Veterans of Foreign Wars and with people who are unhoused.

“We don’t believe in giving adults things for free,” Morgan said. So adults who need bikes can do community service through the collective and build their own bikes from parts in the "bone pile," he said.

The collective sells memberships or access to bike stations and accepts donations of bikes in any condition. Then, volunteers take them apart, inventory parts and recycle any unusable pieces.

Damaged frames can be turned into scrap metal. Innertubes and tires are turned into backpack straps, wallets and other upcycled items.

“We repurpose as much as we can,” Morgan said.

The collective also fixes bikes in good condition to sell them, with all the money going into more bicycle donations.

“It’s really been in the last two years that bicycle sales have been our primary source of funding,” Morgan said.

One bike sold at a value price might pay the cost to repair four bikes to give to children. And the collective doesn’t make a profit.

“We want to help as many people as we can,” Morgan said. “We want to put as many people as we can on a free or a low-cost bike. It’s absolutely gratifying to see a family of four come in and everyone walks away with a bike.”

When Morgan had a day job repairing heaters and air conditioners in 2017, he said he noticed countless old bikes in his clients' backyards, leaning against the sides of houses or forgotten beneath an overgrowth of grass and vines.

“I started asking people what they were going to do with their old bikes,” Morgan said. “I’d know this kid across town who might want one.”

His clients started giving him the bikes.

In his spare time after work, Morgan would spend a few hours fixing bikes and give them to kids who didn’t have one.

When Morgan discovered the Boise Bicycle Project, he decided to quit his job to work full-time fixing bikes and giving them away.

“I saw the potential for what I could do there,” Morgan said. “They were my inspiration to start the collective here in Coeur d’Alene.”

He started the Lake City Bicycle Collective and now follows his passion, volunteering full-time.

“In the beginning, it started with kids, but since then we’ve expanded to homeless people, veterans, anyone in need of a bike who can’t afford one,” Morgan said.

Lake City Bicycle Collective wants every child who wants a bike to have one, and Morgan works tirelessly to build the collective into a sustainable long-term nonprofit business that fills that local need.

“It takes a small army to get this done and they’re all volunteers,” Morgan said. “2020 was the year that I quit the HVAC biz and went full-time into the bike shop. And that meant that volunteers could come and help.”

Today, Morgan and a handful of volunteers give away or sell more than 500 bikes a year, with help from local nonprofits including St. Vincent de Paul North Idaho, the Boys and Girls Club, North Idaho CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) partners and the First Baptist Church.

“Coeur d’Alene on a bicycle is a lot different than the same city by car,” Morgan said.

His dream is that everyone can share in that experience.

For those with information on a local space available to be a new home to the Lake City Bicycle Collective, or for details about the collective, email tom@lcbcbikes.org or call 208-740-1502.