Week 1: An Introduction

January 24 was a pretty exciting day at Youth & Family Services' Girls Inc. program. 12 girls, all between the ages of 9 and 11 years old, found out they had been chosen to participate in the Helping with Horsepower^TM Bike Rebuild Program.

Helping with Horsepower™ was founded by Laura Klock, Dave Sietsema, and Erika Cobb of Klock Werks.The Helping With Horsepower™ Bike Rebuild Program is a fun and innovative, 20-week program that utilizes a motorcycle as an effective tool to teach life lessons such as team work, self-confidence, problem solving and self-esteem, through hands on learning and instruction.

As you can imagine, there was a buzz in the room after Rachel Cole, the YFS staff member spearheading the project, explained to the girls what the project was all about. There were a LOT of questions and some pretty excited young ladies, especially when Rachel pulled up a photo of the bike the girls were going to be working on. "This project is going to be pretty cool, " stated Shauntay (4th grade Girls Inc. member), "I never thought this would be something I could do."

The motorcycle the girls are customizing is a 2012 Harley Davidson Heritage Softail that was generously donated by Black Hills Harley Davidson. In a presentation that took place the first week of January, Black Hills Harley Davidson owners and staff members presented YFS with the keys to the bike.