VOICE FOR EVERYONE | Share your voice with KSHB 41's Grant Stephens
Every detail and part on every bike is earned for some teens in Kansas City, Kansas.
The collection of lowrider bicycles built by participants in Lowriding 2 Success have each been customized extensively.
Participants earn parts for things like good behavior, attendance and grades.
Martin Cervantes, the man who started the club, says it's about much more than the bikes.
"Their feelings, their hearts, their imagination — it's a part of them," he said.
The bike club gives at-risk youth a built-in support group. They build up bikes, and each other.
"They're not just building bikes," Cervantes said. "They're building themselves; they are re-imagining their lives."
Many of the participants, teens roughly 15-17 years old, have found themselves in the system. They've seen where that could lead them.
Johnny Valdivia, an eighth grader, has already seen so much loss.
"When my friend died," Johnny recounted, "he got shot in the head, and then this other friend died; he got shot 12 times. I can't; I'm not trying to do that. I'm trying to at least see 18."
He describes a pretty harsh reality.
For years, it was Rudy Perez's reality.
"I grew up in a violent environment and I've been through a lot of bad and tough situations," he said. "I mean, I was incarcerated for six years."
It's hard to take advice from people who haven't lived what you lived.
So when Perez turned his life around, and when he became a mentor, the kids listened.
"Show them that there's a better way. That there's a different type of family that really loves, that really cares about them that helps them grow into what they're meant to be," he said.
For many, it's working.
"I don't know how to explain it," Johnny said. "But like, I want to start doing better for myself."
Cervantes couldn't be prouder.
"It's an amazing feeling to know that we are doing something right. We're not trying, we're doing it," he said.
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