Today we’d like to introduce you to Missy Petty.
Hi Missy, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Since 2015, I have been passionate about creating a non-competitive environment for women of all skills and abilities to come together and ride mountain bikes. Most of my dearest and most important friendships, that will last a lifetime, were discovered while riding with women that made up an already vibrant and growing cycling community.
By hosting all women MTB group rides once a month for new riders to advance for several years, I was able to share my true love of mountain biking as well as bring women together to form lifetime bonds through this empowering sport as a Bell Helmets Joy Ride Ambassador (2015-2020). Riding to me is pure freedom and that brings nothing but joy. I was fortunate in having the Joy Ride become so successful and watched it grow into something of its own.
I wanted to continue to build upon that by becoming a Mentor with the Little Bellas Chattanooga Program in 2018. I absolutely loved seeing the confidence built through the Program and wanted to continue to empower girls in my area and bring rad women together to ride bikes. I loved it so much that I started a Program the very next year, 2019, in Knoxville.
The Knoxville Weekly Program meets eight Tuesdays at Baker Creek Preserve and is open to girls of all abilities. Based on having fun, the program creates an environment to allow each girl to make new friends, ride trails, and play games, all while learning skills for the sport of mountain biking. Girls and Mentors (we don’t coach, we mentor) ride once a week and participate in games and activities to help them build confidence and mountain bike skills in a progression.
The girls will be given healthy challenges in a friendly, fun environment, both on and off the bike. This curriculum is designed to promote camaraderie among the girls, skill learning, and perpetuate the love of mountain biking, all while having a great time! Financial assistance is available if needed and we also have equipment available through our Gear Up program!
The goal of Little Bellas is simple: to create a nationwide girls’ cycling program that allows participation opportunities regardless of economic status. One of the organization’s founding principles has been to eliminate barriers to participation through financial aid and loaner equipment in our Gear Up program.
Between 2007 and 2019, Little Bellas served more than 4,500 young female riders with a 100 percent renewal rate for each program chapter from day one. The program’s underlying success often gets credited to its mentors, the talented and inspiring women who are the heart and soul of Little Bellas.
All mentors volunteer their time and bring a powerfully positive attitude and an energetic will to pass that attitude along to a new generation of young women.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There will always be a few bumps in the road when you start something new, but I was lucky to have several years of organizing large group rides for adult women. That prepared me for some of the challenges. Being a Mentor the year before bringing the Program to Knoxville as the Lead also gave me vast insight.
Little Bellas has a staff of women that do so much organizing for me in terms of registration, curriculum prep with videos, online training, Mentor Meet & Greet, and organization into Google Sheets, that all I have to really do is make sure that I am on the ground with the girls and Mentors and providing them with what they need to have fun on mountain bikes.
I just can not speak highly enough of what Sabra Davison (Director) and my regional coordinator, Sarah Olson, do behind the scenes to make sure that my Mentors and I are supported so that we can build trust and support the girls from Day 1. They are magic.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I work for Conservation Fisheries, Inc. a 501(c)3 nonprofit team of conservation biologists that work to preserve the vast aquatic biodiversity in our rivers and streams of the Southeast. Our facility is in Knoxville, TN, and I have worked there for 17 years recovering and restoring rare and imperiled fish species populations that have been eliminated because of pollution and habitat destruction/alteration.
We snorkel free-flowing rivers and streams and collect fish to hold and spawn using our controlled propagation techniques that we have artistically developed over more than 30 years. Conservation Fisheries, Inc. was founded in 1986 and incorporated in 1992 by J.R. Shute and Patrick Rakes. I think that what sets me apart from others is that I love my job and I can’t imagine working anywhere else.
Not many people can say that these days. I love doing the work that we do and the rewards of seeing fish reproducing in the wild again where they were once gone are worth more than money. It also brings me joy and that’s freedom you can’t find in most jobs these days.
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Working at a nonprofit always has the risk of not having enough funding, but I guess I’ve always been a risk-taker. That’s why I LOVE mountain biking.
If you fail, then you try again and again. I love a good, hard challenge. The risk at my job has always been worth the reward. And, if you can build solid, trusting relationships with partners in our work, then the risk of not having enough money is decreased over time.
There are only 2-3 facilities in the country that even comes close to doing what we do. So, it is important that we do our best to show our funding agencies and partners that we are worth the risk and we will work hard to restore lost populations of fish back to our rivers and streams.
Contact Info:
- Email: missy@littlebellas.com
- Website: LittleBellas.com; conservationfisheries.org
- Instagram: @littlebellasmtb, @conservation.fisheries
- Facebook: @littlebellasmtb
Image Credits
Tanya Serna, Debbie Montgomery, Kat Bike, Kayla Turner, and Marcia Tobin
