HOMEBOY Industries Founder Father Gregory Boyle is Hoping for a Miracle
My daughter and I were 10 minutes late to Father Gregory Boyle’s book signing Tuesday night and were surprised to find a standing room only auditorium on a day that reached over 105 degrees outside. Fr. Boyle spent the next hour regaling the audience with stories about the “homeboys” he has been helping for the last 22 years in downtown Los Angeles. Particularly moving was his recounting of his trip to Washington D.C. with three of his “homeboys” at the bequest of First Lady Laura Bush.
After visiting HOMEBOYS in LA, Mrs. Bush asked Fr. Boyle to speak at a conference in the nation’s capital and then to come with the invited homeboys to a White House dinner. Fr. Boyle described in great detail the difficulties of getting security checks through the Secret Service since all three homeboys were ex felons, he spoke of the difficulties of getting permission from the probation department, he described the pride the men showed when they were being fitted for suits, and he described amidst audience laughter the White House menu that included potatoes stuffed with caviar that one of the men found “nasty.” But perhaps most movingly, he spoke of the trip back home and how one of the homeboys brought a stewardess to tears when he told her of his adventure in Washington D.C. and she was able to see how far he had come as a man and not as a tattooed felon.
The mission of HOMEBOY Industries is to assist at-risk and formerly gang-involved youth to become positive and contributing members of society through job placement, training and education. According to NPR, Homeboys is the largest gang intervention program in the country. But sadly in May, Fr. Boyle announced that the organization was another victim of the Great Recession and he had laid off his staff of 300 ex gang members and the organization was now struggling to survive.
Soon after the layoff announcement Boyle spoke with NPR.
“We hope that someone will rescue us,” Boyle said. “But maybe it won’t happen. Is there another place in the county of L.A. where people with records and with a gang past can go and jump-start their life? No, there isn’t.”
Boyle says the program’s successful Homeboy bakery, silk-screening and the Homegirl Cafe remain open for business. But with very little government funding and no major donations, there’s simply no money for services. After Boyle announced the layoffs, many of his workers vowed to stay on as volunteers.
“I couldn’t get from my car to here without people hugging me and [saying] we’re staying, we’re not going anywhere, you don’t have to pay us,” Boyle said. “But they can’t do this forever. … We’re probably in denial a little bit, but we’re hoping … the fat lady hasn’t sung yet.”
At the end of Tuesday’s talk it didn’t appear that many in the audience wanted to leave including us. Attendees stood in a long line that wrapped around the room for a chance to say hello to Boyle and have him sign a copy of his book “Tattoos on the Heart”.
Tonight Fr. Boyle will be at another book signing at Our Lady of Malibu at 7:30 pm. If you can’t make it, you can view a schedule of his appearances at the HOMEBOY Industries website. My daughter and I are going to try to be early this time so we don’t miss the first minutes of his address.
How to quickly check your Facebook privacy settings
If you are at all concerned about your privacy on Facebook–and you should be– then you might be interested in a nifty bookmark tool by ReclaimPrivacy.org I came across today via Mike Melanson of ReadWriteWeb . According to Mike:
The bookmarklet (essentially a snippet of Javascript that executes from your browser bar) assesses your Facebook settings in a number of different areas. It looks at personal information, contact information, friends, tags and connections, known applications that leak personal information and whether or not your friends can accidentally share your information. It also checks whether or not you’re currently sharing information via the controversial “Instant Personalization” that was unveiled last month at f8.
The bookmarklet is easy to install and this is what it looked like after it ran a scan on my own Facebook privacy settings.
Yikes!
To see if your Facebook account privacy settings pass, all you need to do is follow these directions from Mike’s article:
To run the bookmarklet and see how private you may or may not be on Facebook, simply follow these directions:
- Drag this link to your web browser bookmarks bar: Scan for Privacy
- Log in to facebook.com and then click that bookmarklet
- You will see a series of privacy scans that inspect your privacy settings and warn you about settings that might be unexpectedly public.
Jason Chen, APPLE, and the iPhone caper. Blogger versus Journalist? Shield Laws? Who decides? #Journchat
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Since the Apple stolen iPhone caper story broke a little over a week ago headlining Jason Chen, an editor at Gizmodo, there have been more questions raised over a multitude of issues than answers. Did Apple really send employees to search the home of the college kid who found the phone? Did Gizmodo’s Chen break any laws or just commit good journalism as asked by Warren Olney during his conversation last week with Kim Zetter a reporter with Wired magazine and Peter Scheer, the executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition? Was the search of Chen’s home legal? Was the seizure of his ‘work” including computer, phones, electronic records , correspondence and possible records of sources legal? Will sources now have serious misgivings when talking with reporters in the future? Is Chen a blogger or is he a reporter? Does he have different rights depending on whether he is reporter or blogger? Who gets to decide who is a journalist? And finally has Apple turned to the dark side as asked by Jon Stewart? Those are just a few of my questions. What are yours?
Why TOMS Shoes and Gen Y Bode Well for our Future
Emily's new shoes
Yesterday I took my 14 year old daughter Emily to the mall and bought her a new pair of navy blue flats from TOMS Shoes that she has been wanting for a while. Emily wanted these shoes because as she told me “they are really cute and comfortable” and she likes that for every pair of TOMS that you buy the company pledges to give a new pair of shoes to a child in need. According to the TOMS website :
- A leading cause of disease in developing countries is soil-transmitted diseases, which can penetrate the skin through bare feet. Wearing shoes can help prevent these diseases, and the long-term physical and cognitive harm they cause.
- Wearing shoes also prevents feet from getting cuts and sores. Not only are these injuries painful, they also are dangerous when wounds become infected.
- Many times children can’t attend school barefoot because shoes are a required part of their uniform. If they don’t have shoes, they don’t go to school. If they don’t receive an education, they don’t have the opportunity to realize their potential.
The company said that as of April 2010 over 600,000 pairs of shoes had been given away to children in need.
The popularity of TOMS shoes and their “One to One ” program among Generation Y –roughly those born in the 1980s and 1990s and 77 million strong– bodes well for our future. According to marketing and demographic research, Generation Y cares deeply about causes especially involving world issues and the environment. And, as reported by Joel Kotkin in his article for Newsweek titled “400 Million People Can’t Be Wrong” :
Between 2000 and 2050 the U.S. population aged 15 to 64—the key working and school-age group—will grow 42 percent, while the same group will decline by 10 percent in China, nearly 25 percent in Europe, and 44 percent in Japan.
Looks like Generation Y has the heart and the mass to lead us into the future. I for one hope they keep their passion as they age.
Altimeter Report: Social Marketing Analytics Demystified
Who knew Bill Gross has a blog?
Who knew that Idealab founder Bill Gross has a blog? I didn’t and I have had a technology crush on Gross since he founded Idealab back in 1996 to “create and operate pioneering technology companies.” Gross has been blogging since 2008 and his most current entry “Ted 2010 in 100 Tweets” provides readers with an insider look at the feel of the conference.
This has been a busy week for Gross. On Monday Idealab’s company Tweetup announced a new Twitter marketplace designed to showcase the world’s best tweeters and enable them to grow a highly targeted following. According to Gross:
“Twitter has such tremendous potential as a real-time information network far beyond what has been realized to date. For most people, though, 80% or more of the tweets that fly by them when they’re searching for something are useless noise. For serious tweeters, the task of attracting interested and relevant followers is equally daunting. TweetUp will change all of that.”
TweetUp is just another example of Gross leading with innovation.
To be Fair, HRBlock responded after 16 hours
I hate doing my taxes. Every April I pledge to NEVER again do them on my own and every March I am again slogging through all my paper work and once again doing my own taxes. For years I have been using TaxCut now known as H&R Block At Home. On Tuesday of this week I was finally wrapping up and ran into a problem. The return wouldn’t print.
So, since being so successful just two days before with @BestBuy on Twitter, I tweeted @HRBlock.
No response.
I was surprised that just two days before the deadline all I heard from @HRBlock was dead silence and especially after being so happy with Best Buy.
Sixteen hours after my first tweet to HRBlock I tweeted:
I not only heard back from HRBlockAnswers I also heard back again from my friends at Best Buy.
By the time HRBlockAnswers contacted me, I had already finished my taxes and worked around the printer issue. I was pleased they finally responded and that they apologized. As a bonus, I also found out that I was getting $25 back from Best Buy since my washing machine has an extended warranty plan. And more than likely, even after swearing off preparing my own taxes next year, I’ll probably be purchasing another tax preparation software program come January 2011. But, I will be doing my homework on which tax preparation software program delivers the best customer support via Twitter.