Results tagged “homeboyindustries”

Last week, the nation's largest anti-gang program was looking at their own financial crisis. After Friday, Homeboy Industries would have been out of money, thanks to the economy that blew a $5 million hole into the nonprofit's budget this year. For a place with the slogan "nothing stops a bullet like a job," they were considering furloughs.

Taking on the next challenge, Homeboy Industries has expanded their breakfast and lunchtime eatery, Homegirl Cafe, to include Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights for dinner, says Ed Fuentes at blogdowntown. The cafe provides job experience for former gang members and at-risk youth and includes an organic garden, classes and an art gallery. The new dinner menu includes a Mexican salsa pasta, a vegan mole tofu dish and a cucumber avocado salad. Homeboy Industries also assists people through other programs like Homeboy Maintenance and Homeboy Bakery.

Last night, NPR's Hidden Kitchens mavens, the Kitchen Sisters, brought in a full house at the California Endowment for a talk exploring the way a desire to better our lives can bring people together and inspire tremendous change, as part of an evening called "Who Glues Your Community Together through Food?"

When the economy hits the big boys, it also hurts the homeboys. Now, we're not talking about the ones the City Attorney is planning to sue, but we are about the hard working nonprofit Homeboy Industries, which helps youth and former gang members become positive members of society. Celeste at Witness LA finds out about their hiring freeze: "In fact, they will be lucky if they can make payroll for their existing workers. Added to that, the jobs the Homeboy staff used to be able to find for the scores and scores of young men and women who come through their doors weekly looking for work, seem to have all but vaporized." So not only does the bottom line hurt in general, but the fact that they can't place people in jobs--which is part of their mission--because no one else is hiring impacts Homeboy on both sides.