Title : LA’s Homeboy Industries: ‘Kindness is the only strength’
link : LA’s Homeboy Industries: ‘Kindness is the only strength’
LA’s Homeboy Industries: ‘Kindness is the only strength’
[Guest post by Jane Wingfield in Los Angeles, California]My husband and I visited Homegirl Café while on an extended visit to Los Angeles. It sits on Caesar Chaves Boulevard within walking distance from Union Station in Downtown LA. I’ve been wanting to go for some time after hearing a story of Father Gregory Boyle’s simple yet transformative endeavor: Homeboy Industries (see image on top).
In the 1980s, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, was home to more gang members per capita than anywhere else in the US. Father Boyle was pastor at Dolores Mission in the heart of the neighborhood and worked with other community members to mediate between gang members in hopes of stemming the violence.
He came to the realization that most gang members chose to be in a gang because they had no viable path towards employment, much less higher education and economic stability. They needed jobs.
So Father Boyle started a small job program at the Mission. The program included day care, mental health services, legal services, education classes, work-readiness training, employment services and tattoo removal. That helped.
But there were a LOT of gang members in LA. In 1992 he and Hollywood producer Ray Stark founded Homeboy Bakery to create more jobs for ex-gang members, often with felony offenses, who wanted out of the gang system.
Two months later Homeboy Tortilleria opened in Grand Central Market in the heart of Downtown LA. He removed their gang-identifying tattoos and put them to work. Their motto: “Nothing stops a bullet like a job”.
Today Homeboy Industries is a thriving enterprise. Not only is it a bakery, it also has several cafes – Homegirl Café, Homeboy Café in LA City Hall, Terminal 3 at LAX.
They also have a silkscreen business, a catering service and an online store selling baked goods as well as Homeboy merch – T-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs and more.
In addition, their organization provides counseling, job-training and financial aid to former gang members – most of whom are former convicted felons, a label that makes it even more difficult to get a job.
Our lunch at Homegirl Café was not only delicious, it was also delightful. The employees were friendly and helpful, and the gift shop provided me with a couple of items for the newest members of our family. But my biggest takeaway was the quote on the back of the server’s [read ex-felon] T-shirts: “Sooner or later you discover that KINDNESS IS THE ONLY STRENGTH THERE IS.”
Jane Wingfield lives in Olympia, Washington, USA. She is a long-time member of Urban Sketchers Seattle, helps organize sketch outings and co-administers the USk Seattle blog. She has contributed numerous guest posts to the USk blog. You can see more of Jane's sketches on her blog.
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