Baltimore Youth Kinetic Energy Collective

Evelyn (Chavi) Rhodes founded the Baltimore Youth Kinetic Energy Collective (BYKE) in 2014 to provide resources and space for Baltimore City youth who had been excluded from the city’s DIY bike shops to explore their passion. Rhodes, who earned her MPH from Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, designed BYKE to give people ages 12-17 a safe place to learn bicycle mechanics, practice respectful safe ridership, and build community. Rhodes used her OSI-Baltimore Community Fellowship, which began in 2015, to grow BYKE, which was initially operating a few hours twice a week in a shared Station North space. She now operates a dedicated bike repair and training shop in Oliver, where youth can learn bicycle repair skills, or even earn a bike of their own by working eight hours or more on others’ bicycles. “A bike is a literal and figurative vehicle for change,” she says. “And it’s a vehicle that young Baltimoreans have already identified for themselves; I just facilitate and bring the resources together.”