Category: NEWS

Back, back, back to Balaklava!

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Heading up to Balaklava last week we really stayed true to that phrase ‘rain, hail or shine’, in what seemed to be a race against the weather, it was so amazing to be greeted by so many smiling faces!

We last visited the Balaklava community back in March to deliver our covid-delayed Get Stoked! Community Ride Day, this time the pandemic threatened to derail our plans again, but thankfully we were still able to proceed.

The Wallace Road skatepark is quickly becoming one of our favourite spots on the map. Located just across from the high school it’s an excellent example of how our Community Ride Days can work to revitalise a local riding spot and get the local kids keen to ride again.

As the school bell rang to signal the start of school holidays we were inundated by kids of all ages wanting to hit up the skate park and skills activities we had set up close by. There were some familiar faces back in full force, namely Lottie who we donated one of our bikes to last visit. To see her beaming smile riding around was truly heart-warming. Even though the weather kept trying to hound us inside, everyone was happy to take shelter as the showers blew through and then keep rolling as soon as the sun came out.

During our travels week to week our mentors always keep an eye out for hard rubbish gems in the rough. We recently came around a Airwalk BMX that only needed a minor spruce up before going to a new home. This ‘new home’ was in the hands of young lad, Keenen. Keenen was so appreciative on the day and has since got in touch to offer to donate his old bikes so other kids can end up as lucky as he was.

The best part of these days for all of our crew it seeing the entire community come together to get behind the event. With some recent hard times for a number of Balaklava residents, this day is a way to perhaps shrug off the heaviness of those feelings and just enjoy seeing the future of their town learn new skills and enjoy the moment on the bike.

We would like to thank everyone involved in the hosting of this event. We’ll be sure to come visit soon, hopefully without so much of the cold, wind and rain! To see for yourself what a great day it is have a flick through our photo gallery and hit our edit!

New Threads? YES PLEASE!

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Our Supporters Only ‘Get Stoked!’ T-Shirt is now available to purchase

Hey Legends! Now you can Get Stoked! all day, every day with your very own Lighthouse Youth Projects Get Stoked! T-Shirt. 

A ‘Supporters Only’ edition, this is the way you can show some @lighthouseyouthprojects love and look real sharp all at the same time. 

Designed right here by Greg Turra, screen printed by the legends at FTM Shirts and then packed and sent by our CADENCE participants. So many good things right there. 

This is a pre-sale event with orders closing on Fri 2 July to be shipped to you on Tue 13 July.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE YOURS

Sizes XS to 2XL available. Sorry, only online orders accepted.

Hit us in the comments with any questions you’ve got. 

Thanks to Dave Rubinich for the snaps and Ryan Lloyd for the trail arms. 

Filed Under: Things we Love!

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Just like a well-rounded athlete, our GET STOKED! Community Ride Days are just one of the types of mentoring programs that complete us as an organisation.

Designed to encourage young people to ride bikes, promote healthy behaviours and create a space for positive risk-taking, most of all the Lighthouse Youth Projects Get Stoked! events are designed to be FUN!

After venturing north to Balaklava earlier this April. On a wet, misty day in the school holidays, we found ourselves setting up the tent at the Suffolk Road BMX Track in Hawthorndene. The lesser-known cousin to the cultish Apex Jumps, this track has recently had an upgrade and presents a great space for children of all ages to learn and progress with their riding skills.

We were so pumped to see so many faces arrive early and ready to ride. Some kids just came solo, others came in a pack of mates ready to challenge each other. We even had kids like Ned, who was extremely hesitant to ride at all, to begin with, finishing the day getting both wheels off the ground in the bunny hop comp and grab a photo with Professional Downhill MTB Athlete Connor Fearon. You might also note in our photo gallery his mum, who like all rad mums hopped on the bike to have a go so Ned wouldn’t feel so nervous.

Lighthouse Youth Projects Get Stoked! Suffolk Rd
Ned was more than a little excited to meet the real life Connor Fearon

Get Stoked! encompasses several learnings that are essentially snuck into what normal riding behaviours should become. We get participants to look at their riding features, check over their bike, assess where their own skills lie and then start challenging themselves. Of all of the Lighthouse Youth Projects BMX bikes we brought along to ride, none were left idle, which is just fantastic to see.

By the end of the day and after 4 hours of riding, upwards of 50 kids were going to have a very good night’s sleep and even some new mates to go riding with in the future.

Everyone at Lighthouse Youth Projects would like to thank the City of Mitcham for having us out on their local trails and also Trudi from GD Wholesale Fruit Supplies who came over with a box of quite possibly the best local apples you ever did taste.

Most of all thanks to all the kids who came along and the families that joined them. You made our day with all your enthusiasm and smiles!

If you would like a Get Stoked! Community Ride Day in your local area make sure you get in touch with your local council or send us a note via our contact page.

BALAKLAVA GOES WILD!

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On Tuesday 30 March we headed up to Balaklava to deliver a much-anticipated GET STOKED! Session that had been delayed due to COVID lockdowns.

Just over an hour north of Adelaide in South Australia’s mid-north region, the Balaklava township is home to just on 2000 people. After setting up our wares at the local skatepark our anticipation turned to delight when we heard the school bell rang and we were almost instantly inundated by fresh-faced kids look to get rad on bikes.

Over the next 4 hours we saw smiles, spills, stunts and young people just having a really good time. If there’s one thing we like to do, is get more people on bikes and the kids of Balaklava sure showed us how its DONE! There’s were bigger kids falling in love with the skatepark again and even younger ones dropping in for the first time, we even had a local lad, Nathan almost beat our pro mentor Brad in our bunny hop comp!

We would like to thank everyone and especially Holly from the Wakefield Regional Council for making this day possible. To the local groups that provided juice boxes and doughnuts we thank you for powering these kids around for an extra 3 hours after school! To all the kids and parents that joined us for the afternoon, thank you! We hope you got as much as a kick of seeing everyone so excited to ride as we did.

If you would like to find out more about hosting a GET STOKED! Session in your local council area please email us at getstoked@lighthouseyp.org

GETTING THOSE GOOD TIMES ROLLING!

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From time to time we work with councils around the Greater Adelaide area to assist them to give back to their residents.

Recently we featured at events at Stirling and Woodside to give local kids a BIG distraction from COVID and the terrible bushfires respectively.

We’d like to say a huge thanks to Adelaide Hills Council, The Hut Community Centre, Love Woodside, Bushfire Kids Connect, Adelaide Hills Youth Leadership, Red Cross, Woodside CFS, the trail builders at Woody Trail crew and Stirling bike trails.

We had a ball seeing these little (and bigger) shredders get so stoked on riding and adding a few new tricks to the game bag.

Fancy photos courtesy of @tinys.garage / @beyondthetape.podcast

SMILES FOR MILES AT PORT PIRIE

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GET STOKED! PORT PIRIE was a huge success. Rolling into town on a warm Friday afternoon, the crew were champing at the bit to get things set up and ready for the locals to session.

The water views of Port Pirie Skatepark make for a pretty spectacular backdrop. It’s concrete transitions extend to the silos and other infrastructure that surround it. School had just broken up for the year and the sea breeze was blowing in, what a great time to go ride some bikes!

We were blown away by the young people that came to jam, their families that joined them and the local community that showed so much support. Our prize pack winner Lachlan was more than stoked, and when Lucas managed to snag a new bike by learning how to fix his own tyre, the smiles got spread around pretty quick. Riders who were Dusty in name and nature brushed off the cobwebs to throwdown some backflips and others just got to swap out a scooter for a little while and spend time on 20″ wheels.

These events don’t happen by themselves so we would like to extend a huge thanks to Lisa from USG Employment, Debbie from the Port Pirie LDAT arm, Leo from Youth Port Pirie and everyone who helped by donating their time (or Golden North Icecream). A special mention goes to Mayor Leon Stephens who came along to see what all the fuss is about and see his community come together all with the power of bikes.

We can’t wait to get back over to Pirie for more awesome events! To find out about Get Stoked! events in your area make sure you sign up to our email newsletter below.

If you would like Lighthouse Youth Projects to run an event like this in your local area please send an email to getstoked@lighthouseyp.org

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WHEN GENEROSITY ROLLS IN FROM FAR AND WIDE

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The inaugural Lighthouse Youth Projects Bike Drive hosted in conjunction with City of Port Adelaide Enfield and City of Charles Sturt a huge success.

Day to day Lighthouse Youth Projects works with over 100 at-risk youth across South Australia and Tasmania. Bikes are integral to work we do with ‘mentoring through bikes’ being our guiding principle. We are also hugely aware of the value of bikes to people and how that value takes on many different forms depending on the individual.

The idea of the bike drive was to create a space where people could come and donate bikes they loved, but no longer needed so they could have a meaningful new home or just make sure that those that couldn’t be ridden again we’re properly recycled.

Late last week the crew from Lighthouse Youth Projects camped out at the Beverly resource centre to accept donations of bikes, running or otherwise, as part of National Recycling Week.

We could never have anticipated the response we received. Over 400 bikes rolled up to our collection station with people travelling from as far as Jamestown to donate. Our staff kept a keen eye on what was coming through the gate and made sure that what could be put to good use again was set aside, with the remainder sorted into recycling.

The 2020 Bike Drive means that Lighthouse Youth Projects now has upwards of 100 bikes that we can repair and service as part of our mentoring activities and also provide bikes to our program participants w,aren’t in a position to purchase one.

As an initiative it has well and truly exceeded our goals, but also filled our hearts knowing that so many people want to keep on creating a better place for those less fortunate.

Lighthouse Youth Projects Bike Sale

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On Friday 11th of September, Lighthouse Youth Projects will be holding a bike sale for all of the upcycled and repaired bikes we have been working on during our mentoring sessions.

These bikes have been repaired with students in our mentoring sessions and checked over by our qualified staff mechanics.

Mountain bikes, kids bikes, road bikes and commuters! We have many options if you are looking to get back on the road or trails.

Bikes will be listed on our Gumtree prior to the sale and shared on this event page so you can have a look at what we have to purchase.

All proceeds from the sale will go right back into the tools and parts needed to fix our next round of bikes.

The nitty-gritty…
Date: Friday 11th of September
Time: 10am to 2pm
Location: Lighthouse Youth Projects – 40 Sturt Street, Adelaide SA 5000

For more info link in with our event page on Facebook.

Ahead of the curve, rolling with the times!

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AN UPDATE FROM JAMIE & THE CREW

We like to think that most of the time we are pretty excited about the programs we deliver and those we have in the pipeline. With our latest pilot program, BALANCE we are almost jumping out of our skin!

Innovation, to be agile and pivot, they are all terms that get used a lot in business-speak. Sometimes they are warranted and in the case of our latest project, we can safely say that everyone at Lighthouse Youth Projects has been doing all three to get things up and rolling. 

CoVID-19 has pushed us to be an even better organisation and reach more people than ever before. The crux of what we have developed for BALANCE relies on the core principles of our mentoring, our people. What we have created are the tools to enhance this style of delivery and also allow us to continue to work with our cohort in the event of a future lockdown. The team have been hard at work creating a curriculum, workbook and App (for both iPhone and Android) that will complement our face-to-face mentoring.  

We know times are extremely tough for those who already face many challenges. Ensuring we can create some continuity and support for the young people we work with is essential to what we do. 

There have been numerous added benefits that we never predicted during development. With these new tools, we can adapt to the different ways young people are engaged. Some prefer a device, some get really pumped on the magazine-style workbook we have created. It has also meant that we now have a very tangible way to work with at-risk young people in remote areas. 

Currently, the program is being trialled in select schools in southern Adelaide. In 2021 we will look to build the number of schools we are working with ensuring we always provide the extremely high level of service delivery we pride ourselves on. 

So how can you be involved? In the not too distant future, we will give YOU the chance to support an additional round of this groundbreaking program, so that those who may fall through the cracks will have the opportunity to participate in something that will benefit them for years to come.

Keep listening out for more about this exciting opportunity to get involved with us and the young people we work with.

In other exciting news, we are pleased to introduce to you the crew at MOOD Racing, this local team of bike enthusiasts has been generous enough to nominate us as their charity partner. If you like the idea of getting out and watching some pretty wild bike antics in the parklands make sure you give them a follow on Instagram.

We will also be holding a garage sale for our upcycled and refurbished bikes on Friday 11th September from 10am to 2pm at our city location, Level 2, 40 Sturt Street, Adelaide. 

These bikes have all been repaired with the students in our mentoring sessions and checked over by our qualified staff mechanics. All proceeds from their sale will go back into running these mentoring sessions for the purchase of tools, spare parts and the like. We hope to see you there to snap up a bargain and see our new digs at Employment Options. 

Thanks for helping us to #keepthestoke!!

Jamie Moore & all the Lighthouse Youth Projects crew. 

LIGHTHOUSE YOUTH PROJECTS now has DGR status!

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What’s that saying about ‘best-laid plans…?’
We were hoping to share this exciting milestone with you all in different times, but here we all are. As we’ve said only a few days prior, everyone at Lighthouse Youth Projects hopes you are all keeping safe and well, and doing your best to stay healthy and active. 

Our programs have made and continue to make positive change in the lives of young people. Many of you have already supported us via donations in the past and for that, we say thank you. We also know that many of you would love to donate to help us deliver our programs to more youth, in more places across Australia. 

Now more than ever, everyone’s dollar has to work that little bit harder and that’s why we have been working extremely hard behind the scenes to achieve full DGR status or in simpler term become a tax-deductible charity. 

WHAT DOES DGR STATUS MEAN FOR YOU?

As of December 31 2019, any monetary donation you make (or have made) to Lighthouse Youth Projects will be tax-deductible. This won’t change the reason why you would donate to Lighthouse Youth Projects but we hope that it will be an added benefit that we can provide to you as a valued supporter. 

Donations can be made by clicking on the button below. If you would like to contact Lighthouse Youth Projects directly to discuss making a donation you can do so via getstoked@lighthouseyp.org.