And a Child Leads Them : Leo Beckerman, 11, of Studio City is one of the top fund-raisers for AIDS Walk L.A. through his group ‘Kids Who Care.’ : HEARTS OF THE CITY: Exploring attitudes and issues behind the news.

At 11 years old, Leo Beckerman is pretty much your standard-issue seventh-grader. He loves skateboarding, wears braces, has a fish tank in his room and plays computer games like a fiend. But make no mistake, this San Fernando Valley youngster has more smarts and heart than a whole lot of grown-ups.

Over the past few years, through a group he calls “Kids Who Care,” Leo has been instrumental in raising tens of thousands of dollars in the annual AIDS Walk Los Angeles. Last year alone, he and about six dozen children raised $15,000, making them the 11th-ranked fund-raising team out of the 650 groups that participated.

“Some people use makeup to make themselves look good and to feel good about themselves,” Leo says. “I do the AIDS walk to make me feel good about myself.”

He launched his one-boy crusade at the age of 7, never having met anyone infected by the HIV virus.

He was encouraged to participate by his mother, who has a friend on the AIDS Project Los Angeles board and had walked before.

In his first year, Leo raised $2,000 to benefit the organization from sponsors to whom he had made his pitch in handwritten, photocopied letters.

The next summer, his mother, Janet Beckerman, and her friend, Vallery Kountze, came up with the idea of creating a kids team, figuring youngsters can raise more than adults with a bat of their eyelashes.

“I think he’s so adorable that when he would ask people to sponsor him, people who gave me $25 the year before would give him a hundred dollars,” said Leo’s mother.

“There’s so much emphasis today on giving your kids everything. But I think if you give your kids everything, you really give them nothing. You have to teach them to give.”

So, with six buddies, Leo started “Kids Who Care,” a team of, by and for children. And the team grew. The second year 26 walked. Then 35. Last year, there were about 70.

This year, the team hopes to mobilize as many as 100 youngsters to wear “Kids Who Care” T-shirts during the 6.2-mile annual journey through Hollywood.

“It’s kind of like a tree. And let’s say I’m the trunk,” Leo said, sketching branches onto a tree while sitting at his family’s dining room table in Studio City.

“Then I got more friends, and they got more friends of theirs . . . and the other people got more of their friends, and their friends got their friends . . . and now half the people, I don’t even know.”

Leo, who will soon attend his first school dance, said starting such a campaign to help those dying of AIDS has transformed him, increasing his awareness of the rejection that many HIV-infected people face because of their disease and sexual orientation.

“AIDS originated in America through homosexuals, and that’s not bad. That’s just how it happened,” said Leo, who cringes when he hears anti-gay insults hurled in the schoolyard.

Many children continue to walk, Leo said, because it’s an unforgettable rush: the shouts of encouragement, the high-fives, the honks from cars and, occasionally, the offer of a front-yard garden hose to cool off with. Attention lets them know they’re appreciated.

Jeff Jenest, a vice chairman on the AIDS Project Los Angeles Board of Directors, said he is impressed that people so young have overcome their fear of the little-understood disease to put forth so much effort, particularly since the virus is transmitted through “adult pursuits” such as sexual contact and intravenous drug use.

“For kids to get involved,” said Jenest, who is HIV-infected, “that takes giant leaps of human kindness.”

Despite his boyishness, Leo carries a confidence that makes him seem older than 11. He wears oval-rimmed, intellectual-type glasses and studies Latin at Oakwood Middle School, where he recently promoted the walk at a class assembly.

The crowd of 80 was tiny compared to the nearly 18,000 people he addressed during an opening ceremony for the AIDS Walk the first year he participated, when a radio deejay unexpectedly called him to the microphone to read his solicitation letter.

And while his parents--who had prepared him with practice walks--cried tears of pride, the crowd rose to give a standing ovation.

At the time, Leo thought they were simply leaving for the walk, but he was thrilled when his parents later explained the concept of a standing ovation.

As Leo and his friends have discovered, giving takes hard work. While others on the team go door-to-door, Leo has accumulated a mailing list of about 250 friends, teachers and family members.

“He sends letters, I think, to just about everybody he’s ever met,” said AIDS Walk senior team coordinator Steve Damiano.

This year, the Stephen S. Wise Temple, which Leo’s family belongs to, also has offered support by sending out his letter along with one signed by the rabbi and one by his parents to about 1,200 member families.

But for Leo and his friends, coming in ahead of major corporate fund-raisers such as Bank of America and Pacific Bell isn’t enough.

“Right now we’re just kids,” he said. “Imagine in 20 years if we’re still walking.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Beat

The annual 6.2- mile AIDS Walk Los Angeles begins at 10 a.m. on Sunday. For more information, call: (213) 466- WALK.