By Mary Beth Hislop

The wheels of socioeconomic justice may not spin too rapidly in developing countries throughout the world, but through awareness and volunteer efforts, the miles of inequality are becoming the roads less traveled.

Paving the way for those less fortunate is One Dollar For Life, a non-profit organization launched last year by students at Los Altos and Mountain View high schools and adopted by other area schools.

One Dollar For Life’s first project was to build a $9,000 classroom for 45 students. Robert Freeman, a social studies and economics instructor at the high school and faculty adviser for One Dollar For Life, visited the completed project in Kenya. He said the area was rife with violence following recent elections.

When Freeman asked, “How else can we help you?” the response was: bicycles.

The people often must walk many miles to schools or work, sapping precious calories and time. In addition to their goal of collecting a dollar from students, the One Dollar For Life organization added a Wheels of Wonder (WoW) program to collect bikes.

With community assistance, students collected and shipped 452 donated bicycles to Africa – 904 wheels – through the new program.

“We just had so much support from all the students,” said Lauren Crum, a senior at Los Altos High. “It’s just amazing how students cared to give to people they didn’t know.”

Crum, the lead student organizer for Los Altos High, promoted the event to school clubs and community organizations.

“We thought we would have a good response,” Crum said of the one-week bike drive, “but we were just blown away. We actually had to turn bikes away.”

Freeman was equally surprised with the results. He said the Los Altos and Palo Alto Kiwanis clubs contributed funds to defray shipping costs and members supported the program throughout the process.

“The community turnout was spectacular,” Freeman said. “I can’t say enough about Kiwanis. If they don’t exemplify the true spirit of community involvement, then it doesn’t exist.”

Students from Gunn and Los Altos high schools distributed flyers and helped collect the bikes and break them down for shipment. Along with the 315 bikes shipped out of Oakland April 20, 1,000 pairs of soccer shoes and 27 soccer balls accompanied the wheels.

In one week, local residents donated 524 bikes – far more than would fit in the shipping bin that accommodated 315. So 137 bikes were sent to Mike’s Bikes of Palo Alto, which was filling a bin bound for Botswana.

A farm workers’ cooperative in Pescadero and a student assistance program at San Jose State University received the remaining bikes. Several were too damaged and went to a metal recycling plant.

“Not one bike ended up in a landfill,” Freeman said.

Freeman said One Dollar For Life collected 75 proposals/requests for assistance and chose to focus on the Sustainable Environment and Agriculture Network (SEANET), a nongovernmental organization in the Nanyuki district of Kenya.

“We go to the people right on the ground,” Freeman said. “We’re not interested in politics.”

Macheru Karuku, executive director for SEANET, was dubious that One Dollar For Life would be able to deliver the assistance he requested.

“I was always afraid of the many disappointed people I would have to face in Kenya who are looking forward to the launching of this innovative and unique project,” Karuku wrote in a letter to Freeman. “I therefore received a jolt when I found how successful the project had become on your end, many miles away.”

Crum and Freeman said funds were donated to help establish bike shops for parts and to train people to repair the bikes.

“The way I hear people talk, WoW is likely to be a very important project for this country,” Karuku said. “In the meantime, the shoes and balls are going to be an icing on the WoW cake.”

Bikes, balls and shoes have since arrived, Freeman said.

Wheels of Wonder isn’t the only success One Dollar For Life can boast about. In addition to the bikes, balls, shoes and classroom, the organization purchased 60 desks for a school in Malawi; students at Palo Alto’s Jordan Middle School contributed 2,000 pounds of food for the Second Harvest Food Bank at Thanksgiving – One Dollar For Life matched the donation. The same students donated money to buy two cows for an orphanage in Kenya – the milk will provide 120 children with needed daily protein – and construction began on a three-room school in Nepal that will be finished in June.

This has been accomplished since May last year.

“For a first year, it is amazing and it would not have been possible without the support of our community,” Freeman said.

Freeman said the scope of One Dollar For Life is more than collecting a buck. It’s about giving students a sense of connection with the larger world, an agency of compassion and a context for cooperation.

“(It’s) a commitment to making the world a better place – a commitment to working together,” Freeman said. “The dollar is simply a symbol of these two commitments.

Contact Mary Beth Hislop at marybethh@latc.com.