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UNIT 6 MAKING A DIFFERENCE, PAGE 159, READING 1

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JUSTIN LIBO, by Philip Hoos, from It's Our World, Too

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Something about the battered old bicycle at the garage sale

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caught ten-year-old Justin Libo's eye.

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What a wreck!

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It was like looking at a few big bones in the dust

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and trying to figure out what kind of dinosaur they had once belonged to.

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It was a BMX bike with a 20-inch frame.

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Its original color was buried beneath five or six coats of gunky paint.

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Everything, the grips, the pedals, the brakes, the seat, the spokes,

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was bent or broken, twisted and rusted.

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Justin stood back as if he were inspecting a painting for sale at an auction.

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Then,

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he made his final judgment.

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Perfect.

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Justin talked the owner down to $6.50

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and asked his mother, Diane, to help load the bike into the back of their car.

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When he got it home, he wheeled the junker into the garage

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and showed it proudly to his father.

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Will you help me fix it up? he asked.

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Justin's hobby was bike racing, a passion the two of them shared.

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Their garage,

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barely had room for the car anymore.

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It was more like a bike shop.

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Tires and frames hung from hooks on the ceiling

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and bike wrenches dangled from the walls.

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Now,

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Justin and his father cleared out a workspace in the garage

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and put the old junker up on a rack.

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They poured alcohol on the frame

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and rubbed until the old paint began to yield,

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layer by layer.

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They replaced the broken pedal,

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tightened down a new seat,

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and restored the grips.

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In about a week, it looked brand new.

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Soon, he forgot about the bike.

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But the very next week,

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he bought another junker at a yard sale

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and fixed it up, too.

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After a while, it bothered him

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that he wasn't really using either bike.

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Then, he realized that what he loved about the old bikes

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wasn't riding them.

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It was the challenge of making something new and useful

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out of something old and broken.

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Justin wondered what he should do with them.

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They were just taking up space in the garage.

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He remembered that when he was younger,

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he used to live near a large brick building

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called the Kilbarkin Home for Boys.

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It was a place for boys whose parents

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couldn't care for them for one reason or another.

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He found Kilbarkin in the phone book

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and called the director,

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who said the boys would be thrilled to get two bicycles.

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The next day,

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when Justin and his mother unloaded the bikes at the home,

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two boys raced out to greet them.

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They leapt aboard the bikes

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and started tooling around the semicircular driveway,

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doing wheelies and pirouettes,

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laughing and shouting.

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The Lebos watched them for a while,

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then started to climb into their car to go home.

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The boys cried after them,

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Wait a minute! You forgot your bikes!

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Justin explained that the bikes were for them to keep.

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They were so excited,

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they were so happy,

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Justin remembers.

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It was like they couldn't believe it.

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It made me feel good just to see them happy.

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On the way home,

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Justin was silent.

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His mother assumed he was lost in a feeling of satisfaction.

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But he was thinking about what would happen

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once those bikes got wheeled inside

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and everybody saw them.

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How could all those kids decide who got the bikes?

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Two bikes could cause more trouble

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than they would solve.

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Actually, they hadn't been that hard to build.

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It was fun.

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Maybe he could do more.

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Mom, Justin said as they turned onto their street,

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I've got an idea.

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I'm going to make a bike

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for every boy at Kilbarkin for Christmas.

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Diane Lebo looked at Justin out of the corner of her eye.

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She had rarely seen him so determined.

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When they got home,

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Justin called Kilbarkin to find out

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how many boys lived there.

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There were 21.

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It was already June.

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He had six months to make 19 bikes.

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That was almost a bike a week.

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Justin called the home back to tell them of his plan.

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I could tell they didn't think I could do it,

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Justin remembers.

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I knew I could.

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Justin knew his best chance to build bikes

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was almost the way General Motors or Ford builds cars,

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in an assembly line.

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He figured it would take three or four junkers

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to produce enough parts to make one good bike.

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That meant 60 to 80 bikes.

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Where would he get them?

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Garage sales seemed to be the only hope.

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It was June, and there would be garage sales all summer long.

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But even then,

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even if he could find that many bikes,

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how could he ever pay for them?

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That was hundreds of dollars.

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He went to his parents with a proposal.

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When Justin was younger,

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say five or six, says his mother,

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he used to give away some of his allowance

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to help others in need.

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His father and I would donate a dollar

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for every dollar Justin donated.

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So he asked us if it could be like the old days,

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if we'd match every dollar he put into buying old bikes.

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We said yes.

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Justin and his mother spent most of June and July

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hunting for cheap bikes at garage sales and thrift shops.

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They would haul the bikes home,

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and Justin would start stripping them down in the yard.

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But by the beginning of August,

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he had managed to make only ten bikes.

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Summer vacation was almost over,

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and school and homework would soon cut into his time.

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Garage sales would dry up when it got colder.

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And Justin was out of money.

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Still, he was determined to find a way.

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At the end of August, Justin got a break.

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A neighbor wrote a letter to the local newspaper

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describing Justin's project,

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and an editor thought it would make a good story.

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In her admiring article about a boy

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who was devoting his summer to help kids he didn't even know,

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she said Justin needed bikes and money,

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and she printed his home phone number.

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The next day,

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overnight,

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everything changed.

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There must have been a hundred calls,

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Justin says.

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People would call me up and ask me to come over

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and pick up their old bike.

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Or I'd be working in the garage,

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and a station wagon would pull up.

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The driver would leave a couple of bikes by the curb.

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It just snowballed.

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The week before Christmas,

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Justin delivered the last of the 21 bikes to Kilbarkin.

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Once again,

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the boys poured out of the home

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and leapt aboard,

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the bikes tearing around in the snow.

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And once again,

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their joy inspired Justin.

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They reminded him how important bikes were to him.

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Wheels meant freedom.

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He thought about how much more the freedom to ride

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must mean to boys like these

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who had so little freedom in their lives.

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He decided to keep on building.

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First, I made 11 bikes for the children in a foster home

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my mother told me about.

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Then, I made bikes for all the women

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in a battered women's shelter.

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Then, I made 10 little bikes and tricycles

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for children with AIDS.

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Then, I made 23 bikes

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for the Patterson Housing Coalition.

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In the four years since he started,

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Justin Lebo has made between 150 and 200 bikes

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and given them all away.

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He has been careful to leave time for his homework,

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his friends,

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his coin collection,

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his new interest in marine biology,

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and, of course, his own bikes.

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Reporters and interviewers have asked Justin Lebo

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the same question over and over.

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Why do you do it?

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The question seems to make him uncomfortable.

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It's as if they want him to say what a great person he is.

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Their stories always make him seem like a saint,

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which he knows he isn't.

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Sure, it's nice of me to make the bikes, he says,

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because I don't have to, but I want to.

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In part,

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I do it for myself.

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I don't think you can ever really do anything

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to help anybody else

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if it doesn't make you happy.

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Once, I overheard a kid who got one of my bikes say,

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a bike is like a book.

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It opens up a whole new world.

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That's how I feel, too.

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It made me happy to know that kid felt that way.

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That's why I do it.