The board of directors of Bike Friendly Kalamazoo awarded Bill Adams one of its three 2021 Civic Leadership Awards January 7 during a meeting of the Rotary Club of Vicksburg.
Adams, a former Vicksburg village council president, “earned our Civic Leadership Award for his ongoing and enthusiastic work to make the Village of Vicksburg and South County even more bicycle friendly,” said Paul Selden, president and chair of Bike Friendly Kalamazoo. “His efforts resulted in a significant list of worthy milestones.”
A statement released by Bike Friendly Kalamazoo includes a list of bike-friendly achievements the group attributed to Adams:
• Making Vicksburg the home of BFK’s annual Fall Bike Celebration Weekend.
• Enhancing the village’s reputation as a home of public art events that celebrate the joys of bicycling.
• Encouraging the village to install high-quality bike racks and hold its first municipal bike light giveaway program later in 2022.
• Helping organize the area’s first-ever Ride for a Reason “multi-charity bikeathon,” which raised more than $13,000 for local and regional charities in 2021.
Adams is actively working to show South County’s creative leadership and become even more bicycle friendly at the same time. “In 2022 we’d like to put smiles on people’s faces using public murals to share the joy of bicycling, and do the same for kids by raising funds for an All-Kids-Bike program in kindergarten PE classes and bike rodeos,” he said. Adams asked those interested in supporting or encouraging these efforts to contact him.
He was elected to Bike Friendly Kalamazoo’s board of directors last year and serves as its vice president. He is also an ongoing member of the greater community’s Bike Program Steering Committee. Bike Friendly Kalamazoo (BFK) is a 501c3 Michigan nonprofit organization whose mission is to help make the greater community even more bicycle friendly. For more information, see bikefriendlykalamazoo.org.