Blessed with 300 days of sunshine a year, Pueblo is a lively city with a great love of the outdoors. With a brand-new urban kayak course, bike trails, rivers and lakes for fishing and sunny golf courses, Pueblo is a great place for year round recreation. Pueblo offers people from across the front range excellent recreation opportunities.

Sadly, many children grow up in Pueblo only seeing the mountains as a distant place, far from their every day reality filled with concrete and blacktop, drugs, violence and gangs. Trips for Kids Southern Colorado (TFKSC) is launching operations to give disadvantaged, urban children the opportunity to experience and learn about the natural beauty of Colorado from the seat of a mountain bike.

TFKSC exists to provide children the opportunity to see a different side of Colorado, to expand their understanding of what they can personally achieve, and to make personal connections with the natural world. TFKSC believes that it’s positive, physically challenging, educational outings can make an unquestionable difference in the lives of children by opening their minds to new possibilities, arming them with greater self-esteem, and giving them a chance to achieve demanding goals.

Pueblo Public Schools is home to nearly 18,000 children. 66% or over 11,000 of these children are low income and qualify for free/reduced lunch support. TFKSC’s goal is to give as many children as possible the opportunity to experience the wild places of Colorado on a bike. To accomplish this goal, initially the organization will only offer single day trips to a variety of youth agencies. The second phase, the Ride Leader program, explained later in detail, will work with a core group of children on multiple trips.