It all started a few months ago, when Ric Jackson helped a neighbor who was looking for someone to fix the brakes on his daughter’s bike.
“I fixed it. The father got it back. And the girl was excited and so was he ”, summarizes Jackson to CBS News,
The avid cyclist and retired mathematician has arranged more than 650 bikes for friends, neighbors and even strangers.
You don’t charge anything for this job, you do it for love of art, but says he gets a lot in return. Especially the looks on children’s faces when they see their old transformed bicycles.
When he looks at a bicycle, he says he sees “a beautiful thing”. “If you clean the dirt off the tires, put new grips on it, before you know it it will be something that will delight the heart of some child somewhere.”
As proof that their work reaches far and the hearts of many people, a father sent Jackson this text message: “Thank you for the wonderful gift today. We had a great bike ride and she was all smiles. ”
This is the kind of thing that makes Jackson’s day.
“That’s my reward,” he admits. And at times like these, there may be no better reward than a child’s smile.
