September 1, 2017
Day 60 Oakland: The End (for now)
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We enjoyed our couple of days in Oakland, even though we were there for their record setting heatwave. Tiff was a wonderful, amazing Warmshowers host and we wanted to spend this last page talking about her, as she really does encapsulate one of the main reasons we like travelling in this way – meeting amazing people.
Tiff is a bike mechanic and has been doing this for about 8 years – she’s really good at it! She worked in a shop, repairing bikes and enjoyed learning all about how to do this, but she noticed that there were a lot of bikes in the area that were going to the landfill because they would be lost or stolen, end up broken in some way or another, and there was no where for them to go. She also noticed that many members of the community, who could really use a bike for transportation had no access to bikes as they couldn’t afford them – homeless people, people coming out of prison, or low income families. So two years ago, she decided to create a non-profit to gather bikes that were being discarded, fix them up and get them into the hands of people who need them. She has a little shop within an artist’s collective and sells some of the bikes she fixes to pay the bills, fixing up others to be given over to different organizations who can then get them to the people who need them. What an amazing young woman! To have the vision to see the need in her community and the guts to go out and just do this is just so incredible! We were able to ride out on the day before we left to see Tiff’s shop (where she also very kindly tightened our brakes!) and we were just so impressed. Tiff, you are truly inspiring and we are so very thankful to have had the opportunity to meet you! And remember Tiff,Vancouver Island is not that far away!
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