According to students, BYU–Hawaii’s Special Waste Action and Technology Team (SWATT) is more than a place to get free commodities on campus because of SWATT’s new bike service. Now, students can get their bikes fixed or a free bike in exchange for three hours of service.
Kayne Palmer, a SWATT employee and a senior from Australia majoring in business and accounting, said students can schedule an appointment on the SWATT Facebook page to get their bike fixed.
“Students can either leave their bikes after doing 30 minutes service, or we can teach them the skills how to fix [problems] by themselves.
“The most common issues that happen to bikes are either rusty chains or tire problems. Those are skills that can be easily learned. It is a lifelong skill. Once you learn it, you know how to fix it.”
SWATT’s bike shop is located in the Temple View Learning Garden located next to the Laie Hawaii temple.
According to their Facebook page, SWATT is dedicated to find ways to better use resources; be it food, money, land, power or materials.
According to Palmer, another service SWATT provides is supplying free bikes for students. A student can earn a bike after three hours of service.
Student reviews
Louise Trish Cahigas, a freshman from Singapore studying in elementary education, said the SWATT workers went the extra mile to help her. She shared how her bike was constantly breaking so she decided to abandon it by leaving it in front of Give and Take.
She recalled, “I just wanted to get rid of it but the worker, Joseph, saw my bike. He fixed it and even offered to deliver it to my hale as I was too busy to pick it up.”
Cahigas continued and said she was impressed with her experience with SWATT. “They have a lot of resources and professional people who know how to fix breaks [on bikes.] I am so surprised people don’t know about it. [We should] make good use of the resources the school has.”
Another student, Yui Chayama, a senior from Japan majoring in anthropology, said she learned about the bike service from her friend. After making an appointment, she mentioned SWATT told her what the problem was and fixed her bike immediately.
Learning via serving
After the 30 minutes of service to get a bike fixed, students can also get vegetables and eggs. Cahigas said SWATT is aligning with students who want to save money. “Not all of us have the extra cash to get our bike fixed.
“You got to work for it, sacrificing a bit of my time to get something back that is a really good learning principle. Some of my friends get turned off because the distance is far and you have to work under the sun, but knowing we can get free stuff encourages us to go.”
Writer: Taffie Kwok