By Nancy Wride
Members of the Good Men Project team were bathed in the aroma of fresh-baked bread Wednesday, as they visited the landmark Homeboy Bakery, a success story in East L.A. where thousands of gangbangers have found jobs, education, and hope.
The thriving bakery is part of a larger enterprise, Homeboy Industries, which provides 12,000 people a year with counseling, employment training, and even tattoo removal, on a $9 million budget. The bakery and other Homeboy businesses earn about $3 million annually, and the other $6 million comes from donations and foundations, said Father Gregory Boyle, who founded Homeboy to give young, poor people alternatives to crime and early death.
Our whole foundation is meant to help at-risk men, Tom Matlack, co-founder of The Good Men Project, observed after the Homeboy visit, part of the projects weeklong Los Angeles tour. So hopefully we can sell a lot of books and help them. (Proceeds from the sales of The Good Men Project book and DVD go to the Good Men Foundation, which supports organizations that help at-risk men and boys.)
Matlack said he was visiting the bakery for inspiration and to learn about how the program operates, since Homeboy is the type of organization that could be a future beneficiary of the Project.
Accompanying Matlack was Julio Medina, one of the 31 men who wrote essays published in The Good Men Project book. Medina is an ex-con who founded and is the executive director of Exodus Transitional Community, a New York program that offers services to help parolees start new lives after incarceration. Medina, who also attended Tuesday nights screening of The Good Men Project film at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, said he was impressed with Homeboy.
You can see they do great work here, said Medina, who, like Matlack and all the Homeboy workers, wore a white hairnet as he walked past the giant mixers and industrial size ovens in the bakerys kitchen
Everybodys smiling here, said Matlack. Did you notice? The building was teeming with people, including volunteers who offer college prep instruction and employees who have earned the jobs by giving back time at Homeboy. On the second floor was a computer lab filled with people at terminals. In another room, Matlack and Medina were shown where tattoos are removed by laser procedure.
One of the tour guides, Gus Mojica, showed scars on his forearms where his skin had been covered with tattoos. However, one vivid tat remains on his neck. It reads, Fuck You. Matlack asked Mojica why he still had that tattoo. When I find a girl who can make me wish I hadnt got this tattoo, Mojica answered, then Ill get it removed.
Moments later Father Boyle led Matlack into his office, off the main lobby. Dominating one wall of the office is a portrait of Cesar Chavez that depicts the labor rights activist standing in a forest in autumn. The other walls are mostly covered with photographs and paintings. Its mostly prison art, said Boyle. A lot of these are by kids whove been killed.
Matlack told Boyle of The Good Men Projects contributors who describe a defining moment in their life, an experience that transforms them. In that moment, Matlack said, as Boyle nodded, is when miracles can happen.
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Nancy Wride is a writer and editor who collaborates on web and print projects. She is a former staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and her work has appeared in papers throughout the country.
