Editor's note: This article is part of a series titled "Above and Beyond" featuring North Jersey's hometown heroes who have gone above and beyond to save lives.

Mike Mattessich, 49, remembered being homeless in 2016 for seven months, but finding a place to stay at the Bergen County Homeless Shelter in Hackensack.

"You were supposed to feel like a failure, how did it get to this? You rethink things that you had done," Mattessich said.

He had already served his country in the Marine Corps for five years in the 1990s, but was now struggling as a homeless civilian, citing a relationship gone bad. He did not have a car then, but there was a mode of transportation that helped him survive.

"We had a community bike, which is one bike shared by however many residents who were there, could be up to a hundred," Mattessich said. "That could be used to get around, if you need to get to a store."

That bike became his inspiration to help others get their wheels and eventually create Bikes 4 Veterans and Others In Need, an organization that provides donated bikes to people who need one.

"The one thing that we lived by when I was in there was never to leave anyone behind," Mattessich said. "For what I have been experiencing, there are some organizations out there ... they just do it for publicity, they don't do it to actually help. I'm trying to do something to actually help."

The Marine Corps veteran, who now lives in Bergenfield, said he goes looking for bikes online that are on sale at a low cost and gets them fixed and cleaned up. The bikes are distributed to veterans and to children whose families are not able to afford one.

"If it's a $10 or $20 bike selling on Facebook, or some of them people will give away for free; I will reach out to them and pick them up myself," Mattessich said.

Since March, his organization has donated 50 bikes to various groups and schools through connections he has made with fellow veterans, his work doing security for a charter school in Passaic and working for Bergen County helping young people ages 17 to 22 in a transitional living program.

Most recently, there was a donation of bikes by B4VOIN around Christmas to several families in need,. In the past few weeks he gave more including to a fellow Bergenfield resident who also served in the Marines.

And Mattessich was honored in December by Rep. Josh Gottheimer as one of a group of "Hometown Heroes."

He also has a fan in A.J. Luna, the director of Veteran Services for Bergen County. Luna saw firsthand the efforts of Mattessich's organization in December in donating bikes at an event in Bergenfield, and to several families in Bergen County as part of the Veterans Services' Operation Holiday Cheer.

"For me personally, I know his story. He is a veteran and I am a veteran too. I think it is just a good way to inspire people to know everybody can give back," Luna said. "I just think it's an inspiring story because he was at the bottom and he was in that dark place, but he was able to pull himself out and obviously, he wants to make sure he does for other people too.

Military families:U.S. Army officer surprises daughter at school after a year's deployment

Development:This is what New Milford has planned for the barren field next to ShopRite

Above and Beyond:Garfield officers, EMTs brave snowstorm to save man in distress

Mattessich looks back at his time spent in the Marine Corps for five years during the 1990s as informing how he developed this bike program to help others who are down and out.

He said all he requests of the people who receive the bikes is that they use it to go to work or to do errands, not for anything illegal.

Mattessich said the bikes had made a difference in the lives of the people who have received them.

"Some of the young people who got them, they use the bikes to get to their jobs," Mattessich said. "The veterans, these are guys who told me, 'Hey, if I didn't have this, if I didn't have this to get around, I got to depend on a bus or something else to get around. But hey, I have this."

He said the organization is hosting a fundraiser at Conlon Hall in Bergenfield with a veterans group to raise money to continue his work. It was originally scheduled for April, but rescheduled for a future date due to the coronavirus.

To find out more about Bikes 4 Veterans and Others In Need, contact Mattessich at 201-970-1171 or b4voin@gmail.com.

Ricardo Kaulessar is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: kaulessar@northjersey.com Twitter: @ricardokaul