Nicholas Howe sits on a stool holding a bike wheel. On the wall next to him hangs an array of tools and hardware, including reflectors, handles and pedals.
“We’re going to put a gas tank on it and some bags to make it look like a bagger,” said Howe. For those not privy to motorcycle speak, a “bagger” is a motorcycle with luggage bags for long trips. The gas tank isn’t real, either, but rather a wooden block designed to look like one.
Howe, an inmate at Stafford Creek Corrections Facility, is working on a bike that will be given away as part of the “Bikes from Heaven” program, a partnership between Stafford Creek and the Aberdeen Lions Club that gives bikes to low income children around the area.
Stafford Creek receives refurbished bikes from the Lions Club and then puts inmates to work in a well-appointed bike shop to repair them before sending them back to Lions members who give them out to families who couldn’t otherwise afford them.
Howe was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2008 after he stabbed someone four times. After serving time at the penitentiary at Walla Walla, Howe was transferred to Stafford Creek, where he will be until 2019.
“It keeps the time going,” Howe said of his work in the bike shop. He added, too, that the work means something to him. Howe’s niece received a bike as part of the program last year.
Prisoners who want to join the program must interview for the position. Having shop skills is important, but an applicant’s behavior while locked up is key to deciding whether or not they get the job, which pays a maximum of 42 cents an hour, according to prison Facility Manger Chris Idso.
The bike shop is right next the Stafford Creek’s sally port, a secured entry and exit point for prisoners and an area that has a high escape potential.
“It’s a select group of offenders allowed to work in this area,” said Idso.
Idso estimated that the prison refurbishes 20 to 30 bikes a month and can fix as many as 300 a year. Most of them are given out around Christmas time. Last year, a holiday giveaway was held at the Historic Seaport in Aberdeen on Dec. 20.
Every inmate who comes to Stafford Creek needs to spend at least 90 days working in the prison’s kitchen. Each offender is offered educational and job opportunities. The prison has a welding program, a home construction program, a state-of-the-art facility for building office furniture and several other work opportunities. Aside from the mandatory stint in the kitchen, however, no one at the facility is forced to work.
“(The bike program) had meaning to it,” said Idso. “It’s something that’s purposeful and much more than mopping a floor or cleaning a toilet.”
Inmates in the shop also fix wheelchairs that are sent to disabled people in developing countries through an agreement with Joni and Friends, a faith-based organization that looks to help people with disabilities. Idso said inmates have worked on wheelchairs that have been shipped as far as Thailand and Guatemala.
Howe has always been interested in fixing bikes and says his experience in the shop has piqued his interest even more. When he gets out of prison, he said he wants to start his own bike shop.
“This job right here is probably the best job in the facility,” said Jeremiah Coffey, a tall, slender inmate from Tacoma.
Coffey has served 15 years in prison and still has five to go. He was convicted of second-degree murder after he killed a man who he says molested his girlfriend’s daughter.
Coffey helps with putting together the wheelchairs but spends most of his time working on bikes. Coffey raced bikes before coming to prison and says spending time in the shop helps to alleviate the reality of being incarcerated.
“It helps relieve the stress of being locked up. There are a lot of programs that help people do that, but this does it for me. This is what I like to do,” said Coffey.
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