Another great day in the city of angels. I had the wonderful opportunity to hang out with my teacher friend, Jolie. We first met in 2011 when we both attended the NEH session in Conn. on Duke Ellington. We got along just great, and still do. I had the good fortune of hanging with her for a day last summer while in LA. I'm glad that I was able to do it again.
We started the day off at Homeboy Industries. This was a deep experience to say the least. Straight from the website, "Homeboy Industries serves high-risk, formerly gang-involved men and women with a continuum of free services and programs, and operates seven social enterprises that serve as job-training sites." We were able to get a tour of the facilities and had an awesome conversation with our tour guide, Boris. Boris served 25 years in prison for murder. He became a gang member after being terribly bullied just because he was studious. The gang was his backup for when he was bullied and it just got worse from there. He saw the error of his ways, and after seven tries for parole, finally got out of prison and went immediately to Homeboy to turn his life around. There were several times during his tour that I just wanted to cry and/or hug him. This is a situation so foreign to me. I didn't grow up that way, and didn't have to deal with those issues. It was a truly eye opening two hours that I will never forget. Homeboy offers a variety of services to the people that come for help. There is free tattoo removal so that former gang members can get their tattoos removed and start fresh. There's classes to finish your high school diploma (GED). They also have parenting classes for young mothers and fathers. Counseling and therapy is offered as well as job training. As part of the job training, Homeboy runs an offsite printing/embroidery studio for t-shirts, etc. And on site bakery and cafe services are used for the same purposes. (We even had a delicious lunch at the Homegirl Cafe.) There's even more that they do in order to elevate ex-convicts and get them into a better life, making better decisions. After such a powerful experience, we took a trip to do something a bit lighter. We headed over to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). We were able to go through both buildings (they were only 8 blocks away from one another). It was a little more uber contemporary than my personal tastes, but I had the chance to see some things that I wouldn't have normally. Plus, they had some pieces from their collection that really resonated with me. Of course I'm talking about Pollock, Krasner, Frankenthaler, etc. It was a great day, topped off some Italian food for dinner with Brandy.
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B.D.SchmittHusband, Father, Archives
November 2015
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