BICAS History

Although we are known in the Tucson community as BICAS (Bicycle Inter-Community Art and Salvage), our official name is Bootstraps to Share of Tucson. Our most visible project (and in many years our only project) is the community bicycle education center known as BICAS. The early history of Bootstraps, which led organically to the forming of our BICAS project, is given below.

Early beginnings and incorporation, mid 1980s to 1989

Bootstraps to Share had its origins as a Tucson chapter of the international Bikes Not Bombs movement. Bikes Not Bombs was originally dedicated to providing sustainable, human-powered transportation to communities in developing countries by setting up, in those countries, local community bicycle maintenance spaces and training local bike mechanics, the key being the establishment of local self-reliance. Similar needs were soon identified within the U.S. itself, particularly in the inner cities.

The precise date of the forming of the Tucson chapter remains murky. According to a Bootstraps grant application from 21Oct1995, our Bikes Not Bombs chapter formed in 1983. However, according to histories of Bikes Not Bombs in Massachussetts, they started around 1984 with a purely international focus, and only around 1987 developed similar programs for their local community, subsequently starting about a dozen similar organizations around the United States. (Since their history doesn't give details, it remains unclear whether Bootstraps was merely inspired by Bikes Not Bombs or was an official chapter of Bikes Not Bombs.) All we can say for certain is that folks in Tucson in the mid 1980s wanted to accomplish something similar.

Bootstraps to Share was incorporated in October 1989 as a non-profit corporation in the State of Arizona. (The non-profit nature was further clarified, in an October 1990 amendment to the Articles of Incorporation, to conform to requirements of federal law, and we obtained federal tax-exempt status as a 501(c)3 organization in December 1990. Arizona tax-exempt status was obtained in April 1991.) You can read our Articles of Incorporation, and learn more about our tax-exempt status.

One of the original incorporators, and actively involved in the organization until 2000, was Kathe B. Padilla, who has started other non-profit organizations, notably Women for Sustainable Technologies.

No mention of “bicycle” in early official descriptions

Even though the organization drew its inspiration from Bikes Not Bombs, and an early project involved hiring Tucson homeless to repair bicycles and weld custom bicycle trailers for donation to folks in need in developing countries, our founding documents were written solely in terms of assisting the homeless rather than in terms of doing bicycle-related projects.

If pressed for a one-sentence description of the organization back around the time of incorporation, we might proffer the following such description, from our March 1991 application for Arizona tax-exempt status:

Bootstraps to Share is a new organization located in Tucson which creates employment for the homeless and at the same time helps them get a place of their own in which to live.

For a more detailed description, we can turn to Article II of the original Articles of Incorporation.

The objects, purposes and general nature of business in which this corporation shall engage are as follows:

  1. To provide a vehicle whereby the homeless are able to re-enter the mainstream of society through the unified efforts of both the local homeless community and non-homeless members of the Tucson community.
  2. To enable the homeless, unemployed and working poor of Tucson to unify their efforts for the ultimate betterment of all and to cooperate with other organizations and/or individuals seeking to obtain the same goals.
  3. To formulate, propose and advocate the implementation of new programs related to solving the problems of homelessness and poverty.
  4. To increase community awareness of and sensitivity to the problems of homelessness and poverty in the community and to solicit the assistance of the general public in the elimination of the causes of homelessness and poverty.
  5. To solicite, collect, and distribute funds and material in order to fulfill these objectives.
  6. To acquire, sell or trade any real and/or personal property required to fulfill these objectives.
  7. To transact any and all lawful business for which non-profit corporations may be incorporated under the laws of the State of Arizona, as they may be amended from time to time.

Official descriptions include “bicycle” starting 1992

Note absence, in all of the above, of the word “bicycle”, which is today perhaps the one word associated most with BICAS.

We first see bicycles mentioned in mid-1992 in the following statements describing the character of the corporation as part of the 1991 Annual Report to the Arizona Corporation Commission:

Create cottage industries to employ homeless people through the selling and repair of used bicycles; sell used parts; manufacture bicycle trailers from scrap materials.

The “recycle a bicycle” meme first appears in our 1992 Annual Report:

Create cottage industries to employ and empower homeless and working poor. Recycle used bicycles, sell to the public, ship ([as a form of] humanitarian aid) to developing countries.

By mid-1994, in our 1993 Annual Report, we start to see our present-day Tucson-focused and youth-inclusive activities emerge:

Run bike repair programs for at-risk youth; recycle bicycles from the community into our youth programs, to homeless persons, and to developing countries; promote the use of alternative transportation in Tucson; teach bike mechanics.

In particular, this statement indicates the organization to have picked up an additional (and perhaps primary) focus on youth; indeed, Article II was amended in August 1994 to increase the scope of the organization beyond the homeless to also include youths, emphasizing youth education, and specifically mentioning human powered transportation.

The objects, purposes and general nature of business in which this corporation shall engage are as follows:

  1. To provide a vehicle whereby youths who are less likely to benefit from material advantage due to social, educational and/or economic constraints, may gain access to vocational and technical skills.
  2. To develop self-confidence, a positive self-image, and a degree of self-sufficiency in youths, and conversely reduce the likelihood of youths engaging in self-destructive and/or criminal behavior.
  3. To recognize and work to remedy the fact that the development of self-confidence, positive self-image, and self-sufficiency is a much greater problem for girls than it is for boys.
  4. To educate youths and the community at large about the benefits of human powered transportation.
AND,
  1. To provide a vehicle whereby the homeless are able to re-enter the mainstream of society through the unified efforts of both the homeless and non-homeless communities.
  2. To enable the homeless, unemployed and working poor to unify their efforts for the ultimate betterment of all and to cooperate with other organizations and/or individuals seeking to obtain the same goals.
  3. To increase community awareness of and sensitivity to the problems of homelessness and poverty in the community and to solicit the assistance of the general public in the elimination of the causes of homelessness and poverty.
AND IN ORDER TO FULFILL THESE VARIOUS OBJECTIVES,
  1. To formulate, propose and advocate the implementation of various programs.
  2. To solicit, collect, and distribute funds and materials.
  3. To acquire, sell, or trade any real and/or personal property required.
  4. To transact any and all lawful business for which non-profit corporations may be incorporated under the laws of the State of Arizona, as they may be amended from time to time.

Kim Young and BICAS

Kim Young, who had worked for Bikes Not Bombs in Nicaragua in the late 1980s, got involved in Bootstraps around August 1994 and remained involved until approximately June 2002. During this time she was the principal source of energy and leadership and was officially designated the Director (later co-director with Allen Reilley and Mark Gifford).

As mentioned in an Arizona Daily Star article on 05Apr1996 (see the 1996 media archive), the organization started using the name BICAS in early 1996, and Kim Young's efforts (and later that of Allen Reilley and Mark Gifford) led to increased public participation and thus visibility. As a testament to their leadership, and for establishing the foundation for what BICAS has become today, we often credit Kim Young, Allen Reilly, and Mark Gifford as the founders of BICAS, even though we must not forget that the parent organization Bootstraps came into existence many years prior, under the leadership of Kathe Padilla and the other founding board members.

Building history

At that time (April 1996) the location of BICAS was Kim Young's artist warehouse. By July 1997 BICAS had moved to its current location at 44 W. 6th St.

The original entrance to the basement was through a side window. BICAS was truly “underground”, both figuratively and literally, and the youth bicycle programs were known as the “Youth Bike Underground”. The old entrance is shown in the 1997 video 6th Street and the Tracks, which you can access on our video archive page. That video also includes interviews with Kim Young and Allen Reilley, among others.

Offshoot projects

Bootstraps is essentially indistinguishable from BICAS. But sometimes there is staff interest in other activities that fit under the rubric of the Bootstraps Articles of Incorporation, and this sometimes leads to a new project, distinct from BICAS, but part of Bootstraps, at least initially until the project gains financial independence and independent legal existence. Examples include the Union of Art and Healing Local No. 8 and the El Grupo Youth Cycling Club. You can read about such projects in the Umbrella Project portion of our media archive.

To the present

Our website got started in 2001. Our website archive shows earlier incarnations of the BICAS website.

The operation of BICAS has remained fairly unchanged since Kim Young's involvement. Naturally the energy and involvement in particular BICAS programs will wax and wane depending on public participation as well as staff interest, lending an evolving character to the organization, but Bootstraps found a niche with the bicycle recycling and education center known as BICAS, fulfilling an important and recognized role in the Tucson community. We expect this project to remain relevant for a long time to come. After all, we're helping people, and having fun doing so. What could be better?