Service Learning Project

On April 23rd 2016, I volunteered for a Bike Rodeo and Summer Safety Fair. At first, I was not so thrilled and enthusiastic about volunteering in this event, but after talking to some of the people who were involved in organizing this event, I was more willing to give my time and effort to help serve the purpose of the event. When I first arrived at the place where the event was being held, O’Connell Center Parking Lot, I had no idea what was happening. So I went to one of the desk to sign up as a volunteer. The Bike Rodeo and Summer Safety Fair was organized by Kohl’s, with the affiliation of University of Florida Police Department, and UF Health Shand’s Children’s Hospital. The purpose is to raise awareness in bike safety measures and reduce the number of injuries and deaths due to bike accidents.

Each year, more than 300, 000 kids go to emergency room due to bike injuries, and at 10, 000 of them has to spend a few days in the emergency room. Some of these injuries are also reported to be life-threatening. Even if we do ignore the negative effects of life-threatening injuries, it is important to realize the fact that, as more children have to be admitted to the Emergency Room, it not only has a bad impact on the child’s family, it also plays a role in the downfall of the city’s economy. Such accidents caused by bike injuries can easily be avoided if we, as a society, were a little bit more concerned about each other.

The population that they served was obviously the kids, and in the event they arranged for a few fun activities for them. Other than bike riding, they set up couple of netted trampolines for the kids. They also served free pizzas and smoothies for everyone! Now for the actual event, there were a number if tasks volunteers could choose to perform. Some could help bike rodeo participants (kids aged fro 3-7) in if they needed to borrow a bike and would hold their parent’s I.D. as collateral. Some would be at a station to assist the riders and made sure they completed the safety task as demonstrated in the handout below. And some could do bike repair and maintenance tips. Children were also given free helmets and taught the importance of always keeping their helmets on while riding a bike. The highlight of the event was the completion of the bike safety task. Children were taught the basic bike riding procedure. They were taught to use hand signals, how to react when nearing a stop signal or a vehicle, as well turning and stopping parking a bike.

The main goal of the event, as mentioned earlier, is to increase awareness in the increasing bike accidents and an attempt to reduce such incidents. It would not harm the society if they invested a few hours from their Saturday morning that would bring about a greater good to the community. Just like I was, there are obviously a lot of other individuals who are unaware of such incidents. The root cause of these bike accidents is simply because people do not know the impacts such accidents are causing to the society. It would be really beneficial if there were more banners and posters hung in the campus areas to address such issues. And of course, there should be at least one or two more events held during a year since this is such a drastic matter and the increasing number of children riding who are riding bikes.