Justin Cyboron

By AMY SCHWEITZER
Hub Staff Writer

KEARNEY — What started out as a high school project to help keep peers off of tobacco has turned into a life of working with service organizations and charities for the 2004 Youth Who Care Freedom Award winner.

As a member of SWAT (Students Warning Adolescents About Tobacco), Justin Cyboron, 18, a 2003 graduate of Ravenna High School, was instrumental in raising funds to build a youth center in Ravenna.

More recently, the freshman at University of Nebraska at Kearney was named as adult adviser to the recently formed Buffalo County Youth Advisory Board and traveled to New York City with the Newman Center at UNK to work with the disadvantaged.

“It just becomes a part of your life,” Cyboron said of his organizational memberships.

He said that during high school it was normal to get up for a before-school meeting, attend class and then maybe squeeze in another meeting before or after cross-country practice.

Cyboron said he recognizes the need for what he can do for others, yet he tries not to let it conflict with other aspects of his life.

“I try to have a nice balance of school and social life, too,” he said.

ALTHOUGH not long out of high school himself, Cyboron is doing what he can to help young people on the right path as a part of the tobacco-free coalition through the Buffalo County Community Health Partners and the Buffalo County Youth Advisory Board.

The youth advisory board formed recently to promote youth projects in the county. It already has its first grant application. It’s from the Ravenna SWAT team to finish landscaping around the center Cyboron helped build.

He said he believes the high school aged kids on the board relate to him better because he is only a few years older but has some experience under his belt.

Cyboron was just a sophomore when the youth center idea came up and he was asked to be a member of the team.

“It just kind of took off,” he said. “It turned out to be a bigger deal than any of us expected.”

THE SWAT team is a group of students from Ravenna, lead by teacher Judy Strate, which applied for a $100,000 grant to build the Blue Jay Headquarters, a youth center where kids can work on homework at computers, watch movies on a big-screen television or play games.

“It’s nice to see it being used by the kids,” Cyboron said.

Although technically an alumnus now, he still helps out with the youth center and fund raising.

“Once you’re a SWAT team member, you’re pretty much on for life,” Cyboron said with a laugh. “A lot of it is about awareness now.”

He and others went to Washington, D.C., for the All- American City awards in the summer and presented the youth center concept for “what seems like the thousandth time,” Cyboron said.

He said one thing the project has done for him is improve his public speaking.

“I’ve grown up so much since it started,” he said. “Just getting up in front of people. I’ve talked about the project to everyone from city council to the school board and for the NCIP awards.”

Then this spring, Cyboron and others from the Newman House at UNK traveled to New York and the Catholic Worker houses, St. Joseph’s for men and Mary’s House for women.

“It was totally not what I expected,” he said adding that he had prepared himself for what it would be like to serve people going through a line.

“It was more like they were our guests,” he said. He had time to sit and talk to some of the homeless men. As he listened to their stories, he learned to treat them as individuals.

“I realized I can’t help ‘the homeless.’ But, I can help Allen and I can help Frank,” he said. “I realized there is a lot that needs done.”

While in New York, Cyboron also helped with an after-school program for children with mental and physical disabilities. He said that at first was a bit overwhelming to have such a large group of children with disabilities but eventually he didn’t notice the differences so much.

Although going to New York was one his dreams and Cyboron said he would like to take an internship there in his field of journalism-mass media, he said he’d rather live in rural Nebraska.

CYBORON found out he was nominated and chosen as a Freedom Award winner the day he returned from New York.

The son of Dan and Kimberly Cyboron said he was pleased that his mother, who sent in his nomination, has so much respect for what he has done.

“Justin is a strong leader in the community, providing community service by encouragement and support to keep youth drug free and alcohol free,” Kimberly Cyboron’s nomination letter reads. “He strives for excellence in his commitment to keeping and improving the quality of life for both young and old.”

e-mail to:
amy.schweitzer@kearneyhub.com