Grab Bag Friday: The GOOD Stuff

The new issue of GOOD magazine has an article on Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries. I remember seeing something on TV about the Homeboy Bakery a few years back, and I was glad to see that the organization is still growing and doing good in the world.

Father Greg Boyle is a Jesuit priest who has been working since the 1980's to help alleviate the gang problem in Los Angeles...no small task, to say the least. In 1992, Father Boyle founded Homeboy Industries/Jobs for the Future. The organization offers free services like:

• Job Placement
• Counseling
• Transition help for those who have just been released from prison
• Tattoo removal

Homeboy Industries also trains and employs former gang members in its bakery, cafe, silkscreening business, and maintenance business. You can even buy merchandise made by Homeboy Industries...t-shirts, caps, and mugs with one of Father Boyle's most quoted phrases:

"Nothing stops a bullet like a job."

It can take over a year and up to 10 painful treatments to remove a tattoo. And yet, according to the Homeboy Industries website, almost 100% of their patients stick to it and finish the treatments. Because it can often literally mean life or death to have certain gang symbols erased. It's important to know that there are organizations out there doing this kind of thing...the unglamorous, incremental, daily-grind kind of good that can make all the difference in the long run.

If you're in the LA area, there is a film screening of "Father G and the Homeboys" tonight!

Here's a story from NPR about last week's grand re-opening of Homeboy Bakery.

Here's a great 5 minute film about Homeboy Industries by Explore.org:



As for GOOD Magazine, this is my 2nd issue & I'm still making up my mind. It's *great* to see a magazine with articles like the one I mentioned above. Then again, they did also endorse the following absurd concept this month (check out the price). "Thanks, sheep." Well, it did make me laugh. :)

Every time you wear a wool sweater, it’s important to remember the sacrifice of some poor ovine fleece-donor, now shivering in the cold of early spring. Flocks—which offers a selection of wool cardigans and hats, each knit from the fleece of one individual sheep—helps connect you to the chain of supply by including a picture and short bio of the sheep that produced your sweater, so you can look at it and say “Thanks, sheep.” $475; theseflocks.com