By its own accounting, Norte Youth Cycling in 2023 tallied 1,393 program registrations, $24,430 in scholarships, 798 bikes lent out through its bike library program, and some 3,000-plus community members “impacted in programs and outreach.” 2024 marks another notable number for the cycling powerhouse: 10 years since it officially organized as a nonprofit. Norte will celebrate that milestone on Friday, May 17 with “A Decade in Motion,” a 5:30-9pm event at the City Opera House that will feature “gratitude, giveaways, and an original feature film created by local videographer, Mark Goethel.” Ahead of the event and the 10-year anniversary, The Ticker connected with Jill Sill, Norte’s executive director, for a look at the nonprofit’s past, present, and future.

First, a refresher course: Norte was formally launched 10 years ago by husband-and-wife team Ty and Johanna Schmidt, who first started planting the seeds for the organization in 2006. That year, Ty and Johanna moved to Traverse City from Tucson and enrolled their oldest son at a local elementary school. Struck by the long line of cars that queued outside the building each morning, the Schmidts began escorting their son to school on bikes. Soon, neighborhood kids were joining the Schmidt family on their daily rides, with “bike trains” of a dozen-plus kids regularly involved. Eventually, the school’s teachers and principal got onboard, and biking to school became popular for many students.

Today, Norte boasts a slew of in-school, after-school, and summertime cycling programs, with options available for kids from three years of age to the end of high school. The organization has also been a key player in efforts to make Traverse City more navigable for cyclists and pedestrians, including advocacy with the Safer Routes to School program that has added miles of new sidewalk and bike lane around the region. Reflecting on the past decade, Sill is proud of that work and how it’s helped propel Norte’s mission of “empowering individuals of all ages and abilities to move more, sit less, and build lifelong habits.”

“I would lead with that empowerment and engagement of children in our community as our greatest accomplishment,” Sill tells The Ticker. “Our programs are designed to grow confidence and create friendships. We want to make sure that children feel welcomed. We use the terms ‘physically active’ and ‘socially connected’ a lot in our programs, because that’s where we see the gap for some children.”

Sill came to Norte first as a parent, enrolling her own kids in the program specifically because it offered both physical activity and community connections. In her view, the latter element set Norte apart from every other youth activity her kids had been a part of, and ultimately inspired her to get more involved with the organization. (Sill became Norte’s interim executive director in September 2021, after the Schmidts parted ways with the organization; Norte's board of directors made the appointment permanent the following June.)

“My children have been in lots of sports, but they have never been in a sport that connects them to their community in the way Norte does,” Sill says. “When our middle child learned to drive, she not only knew how to navigate the community, but she also knows what to expect as a rider, and because of that, she knows how to be a more aware, safer, and capable driver, because she has that instinct.”

The 10-year event at the City Opera House will spotlight those types of success stories. In addition to the film, the celebration will also include multiple former Norte kids on its guest list.

“We’ve been connecting with the very first Norte riders, the oldest of whom are now juniors and seniors in college,” Sill says. “We wanted to reach out to all of them, because they really did grow up with Norte.” Some of those Norte alums, she adds, have even come back to rejoin the organization as summer camp coaches.

Speaking of summer camp, Sill points to that element of Norte’s programming as a top growth priority as the organization enters its second decade. In 2019, she says, the organization had approximately 250 summer camp slots. This year, that number is up to 1,008. That growth came in response to demand – “We routinely were had a few hundred children on our waitlists,” Sill notes – and to Traverse City’s increasingly chaotic summer camp situation.

“We did a survey last summer, and something like 63 percent of our families said they use Norte for a portion of their child care,” Sill says. “We’re not child care, but we do provide an engaging, safe place for children to be, and we want to continue growing that.”

Other big goals for the future include advocating for more Safe Routes to School improvements – particularly around Three Mile and Hammond roads – and growing Norte’s in-school programming. On the latter front, Sill says the nonprofit is currently “in the initial stages of exploring Norte programming for every single second-grader within TCAPS and surrounding school districts.”

If there’s an elephant in the room as Norte prepares to celebrate the 10-year milestone, it’s Ty Schmidt, whose exit from the organization in 2021 proved controversial. For her part, though, Sill has nothing but positive things to say about the Schmidts or the legacy they built with Norte.

“Ty and Johanna planted the seed for Norte in our region,” Sill says. “They recognized that there's a different way to move through our community – a way that promoted physical activity and social connections. What they built was magnetic and organic and exciting, and I think that shows in how Norte has grown to be about way more than just one person. Today, Norte is about the thousands of kids we serve each year. It’s the 150 coaches we hire. It’s our 200-300 volunteers, and our 70-plus local business champions. It’s about our mission and impact.”

Schmidt agrees that it’s all about the kids, telling The Ticker: “Johanna and I are very proud of what we started in the fall of 2013 and wish Norte nothing but the best.”

NOTE: The Norte 10-year event at the City Opera House is free to attend, but tickets are required.