LOCKLAND, Ohio — Vincent Wilson looks up at the sign and laughs.
I had just asked him how many different languages were on it. Wilson knew the answer (7), but couldn’t tell me what they all were. So he laughs.
Wilson laughs a lot. Especially when he’s here.
WATCH: Go inside a local bike shop for immigrants
Professionally, Wilson works as a software engineer. But on Friday afternoons, he’s a bicycle repairman. And a translator. And a dozen other jobs, depending on who comes in.
“Since you’ve last been in the shop, we’ve expanded significantly,” Wilson said. “We have bathrooms.”
He laughs again.
I met Wilson more than two years ago, when he first started this makeshift bike shop. He was teaching English as a second language next door. And he noticed most of the people he taught walked for miles and miles and miles every day.
An avid bike rider, Wilson began giving out free bikes. But soon, the bikes broke. And in order to fix them all — and help the influx of immigrants in Lockland — Wilson needed help.
So he started teaching them.
“I have folks who don’t speak a lick of English,” Wilson said. “But they’re able to come, and they’re able to help out.”
Initially, he called it a bike kitchen. Now, the sign out front says: “Bikes and Stuff.”
“We call it Bikes and Stuff because most of what we work on is bikes,” Wilson said. “But there’s a whole other category of stuff.”
Job applications. Address changes. Even questions about taxes.
“We’re here for that,” Wilson said.
And it's not so makeshift anymore. Wilson tells me they moved into a new building across the street and says the shop has expanded beyond just immigrants.
“I feel very blessed that we get to serve all of our neighbors now,” Wilson said. “But it also gets really chaotic.”
He laughs. And when I ask a volunteer why this place is important, Greg Yurchak tells me a story. He fixed a flat tire for someone last week who looked 60 years old.
“He looked at me and said, ‘That’s my only form of transportation,” Yurchak said, before recalling the man riding away with a working bike. “That’s changing somebody’s life.”
If you’d like to help the Lockland bike shop, Wilson says donations in any condition are welcome. You can find more information by clicking this link.
