{"id":57017,"date":"2025-11-17T16:57:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T16:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/57017\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T16:57:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T16:57:10","slug":"berkeleys-waterside-workshops-reduces-staff-bike-shop-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/57017\/","title":{"rendered":"Berkeley\u2019s Waterside Workshops reduces staff, bike shop hours"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/A Street Level Cycles youth staff member rings up a customer at its weekend community Open Shop, where community members can use the org\u2019s tools, and its staff\u2019s know-how, to fix their own bikes. Courtesy: Street Level Cycles<\/p>\n

Waterside Workshops, a nonprofit based in Berkeley\u2019s Aquatic Park that teaches community members boatbuilding and bike repair skills, is facing significant financial headwinds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hours have been curtailed this year at the 18-year-old organization\u2019s Street Level Cycles program as four staff members, one full-time, three part-time, have been laid off. The nonprofit\u2019s youth mental health case manager, a full-time position, has also been cut.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a huge loss for a small team \u2014 Waterside has seven full-time, four part-time and three youth staff members remaining \u2014 and for the nonprofit\u2019s most public-facing program. Street Level Cycles refurbishes and sells over 1,000 bikes annually, and gives away more than 100 to community members in need. Last year it served some 1,800 people at its weekend community Open Shop, where community members can use the org\u2019s tools, and its staff\u2019s know-how, to fix their own bikes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Construction of Berkeley Commons, a 540,000 square-foot life sciences complex, reduced access to Waterside Workshops over the past few years but the nonprofit\u2019s bike sales have started to pick up since completion of the project. And after a slate of capital improvement projects, Aquatic Park is on the verge of a new era<\/a>. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside\/CatchLight Local<\/p>\n

Waterside is facing a \u201cmajor grant deficit,\u201d according to Rebecca Grove, Waterside\u2019s executive director, including the denial of two major government grants that the organization was counting on this year, and the loss of two general operating grants, amounting to $200,000, that have helped sustain the operation for the past seven years. Waterside\u2019s annual budget of $1.3 million in 2025, is expected to dip below $1 million next year.<\/p>\n

Reduced sales at the bike shop amid ongoing construction on Bolivar Drive<\/a> has contributed to the pain, though money brought in from selling bikes still amounts to about two-thirds of revenue for Street Level Cycles.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey made their budget numbers and we still had to lay people off,\u201d Grove said. \u201c\u200aThat\u2019s what\u2019s really hard, working that hard and selling those bikes and it still not being enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helder Parreira, who co-founded Waterside Workshops in 2007 and still runs the Berkeley Boathouse program, noted that a \u201chuge bubble\u201d of bike sales during the pandemic led the organization to hire more staff at Street Level Cycles. But now that the demand for bikes has waned, the organization needs to do some \u201cfiscal readjustment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Climate Action Program interns harvesting vegetables in the garden. Courtesy: Waterside Workshops<\/p>\n

One part of that adjustment is the expansion of Waterside\u2019s hands-on youth job training program with the launch of a new Climate Action Program, which will include a community garden and outdoor kitchen and will offer interns skills in gardening, landscaping, cooking, and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Each year the organization works with about 75 young interns, split between Street Level Cycles and its Berkeley Boathouse programs. The interns, who range in age from 14-24, are paid for their work, while also gaining job skills. Waterside hopes to increase the number of interns to 85 next year with the launch of the new gardening and cooking program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It opened Sunday, funded in part by a grant from the UC Berkeley Chancellor\u2019s Fund, with contributions from Berkeley Rotary Club, and the Altamont Education Advisory Board.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving multiple things going on attracts kids in different ways and that allows us to connect with them in different ways,\u201d Parreira said. \u201cGrants go through these cycles. \u2026 In the long scheme of things, in the nearly 20 years that I\u2019ve been involved, it\u2019s not that big of an issue. We\u2019ve weathered other stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Waterside Workshops, who co-founded the nonprofit in 2007, works in the shop last year. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside\/CatchLight Local<\/p>\n

Waterside Workshops is also reaching out to its community to help fill funding gaps. It recently raised $40,000 from a fundraising event, and hopes to raise $50,000 from individual donors before year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

Waterside is also asking the city for $121,000 in the next budget cycle. It is a tenant of the city, and Waterside is arguing the funding would help make up for the revenue lost because of construction in Aquatic Park.<\/p>\n

And while it will continue to apply for grants, Waterside is also looking to diversify its funding streams, including \u201cbolstering\u201d its corporate sponsorships, Grove said. Waterside already has a handful of corporate sponsors, including Bayer and Clif Bar, but Grove hopes to attract more.<\/p>\n

2 foundations are cutting off funding after this year<\/p>\n

Two family foundations that have helped Waterside with general operating support for several years, will no longer offer funding starting next year. The foundations \u2014 the Satterberg Foundation, which is under new management, and has new funding guidelines, and the Hellman Foundation, which is spending down its capital by 2034 \u2014 accounted for $200,000 of Waterside\u2019s annual budget for the last seven years.<\/p>\n

Waterside also budgeted for two major government grants for 2025 \u2014 one from the California State Coastal Conservancy and another from Parks California \u2014 that were both denied \u201cdue to a reduction in funds\u201d available to the agencies, according to Grove.<\/p>\n

\"\"The James-Miyoshi family tries out some of the bikes for sale from Waterside Workshops in February 2024. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside\/CatchLight<\/p>\n

These grants helped fund the organization\u2019s Waterside Adventures program, which takes its city-dwelling interns into nature \u2014 camping trips, hiking excursions, surfing trips, even paddling across the Bay in a double-hulled Polynesian canoe \u2014 while teaching leadership skills, such as planning, communication, trust-building, and risk-taking.<\/p>\n

Beyond specific grants, Grove said that the \u201cbroader fundraising and nonprofit organization landscape is at risk\u201d under the Trump administration. She pointed to the defunding of federal agencies that administer the types of grants Waterside applies for, such as the Department of Education, the EPA, and the US Forest Service, as well as threats to private progressive foundations, such as the Ford Foundation, which the White House has promised to \u201cgo after,\u201d according to Politico<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Granting agencies have also noted \u201cthe difficult economic conditions that may lie ahead,\u201d when turning down grant requests, according to Grove.<\/p>\n

Waterside Workshops believes sunny days are ahead
\n\"\"\/Waterside Workshops interns at a community cookout. Courtesy: Waterside Workshops<\/p>\n

The launch of Waterside\u2019s new Climate Action Program is another positive turn, giving the organization the opportunity to create new experiences for its interns, along with building new partnerships.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Partners include UC Botanical Garden, the Edible Schoolyard Project, StopWaste, and the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. Webcor and Rebuilding Together helped build the outdoor kitchen and garden space.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only did we get to renovate our space in a beautiful way and create a food source for our youth who are food insecure and strategies for healthy meal planning, we also found a way to create internships out of it,\u201d said Grove.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Parreira works to repair a boat in 2024. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside\/CatchLight<\/p>\n

Food was a part of Waterside for many years. A cafe it ran for a decade as part of its job training program was forced to close during the pandemic, and plans to reopen it are still on the backburner, according to Parreira. But a community garden was never part of his plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cGarden programs always seemed to me to be cliche in a way with youth development,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But now that the garden beds are in place, and the outdoor kitchen is built, and the fruit trees he planted on the property 15 years ago are fully developed, he\u2019s excited that a formal garden program is part of the organization\u2019s offerings. And he is optimistic about the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of Waterside is going to be used to its full potential now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

“*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Street Level Cycles youth staff member rings up a customer at its weekend community Open Shop, where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[35118,2465,2466,5466,143,145,144,35119,8387],"class_list":["post-57017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-aquatic-park","tag-home-highlight","tag-home-lead","tag-nonprofits","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-waterside-workshops","tag-west-berkeley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}