Scores of youth and young adults were whizzing about --- serving fish tacos, selling fresh baked bread, washing glass windows squeaky clean, and offering tours of state-of-the-art employment training classrooms and tattoo removal services at the new Homeboy Industries.

"Thanks to all of you, hope has a new address," said former gang member Gabriel "Spider" Hinojos to the cheers of more than 1,000 people participating in the Oct. 2 dedication of the Los Angeles Downtown facility at 130 W. Bruno Street.

Celebrating with the homeboys and homegirls were Cardinal Roger Mahony, clergy, police, politicians, donors and community supporters --- an unlikely mix brought together by the vision, passion and perseverance of founder Jesuit Father Greg Boyle.

Near Union Station, the new two-story, 21,000 square foot, $12.5 million facility (seven times larger than the old headquarters in Boyle Heights) also includes an 87-seat café, featuring light, fresh Mexican food (set to open end of October). A merchandizing store offers t-shirts with the logo "Jobs not Jails" along with baseball caps and coffee mugs. A long-awaited industrial bakery --- the original bakery burned down in 1999 due to an electrical fire --- will offer jobs and a chance to learn the baking craft to some 60 former gang members and at-risk youth.

"We live in a time when too many of our kids are lost to gun and gang violence," said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. "And we could easily say it's somebody else's problem and somebody else's neighborhood. Or we could do like many of you have done, raised your hand and said, 'I want to be part of the solution. I want to reach out to these young people. I want to give them an alternative.'"

Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton acknowledged the critical work of Father Boyle to bring back hope into the lives of young men and women caught up in gang life.

"Sheriff Baca and I fully appreciate that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem," said Bratton. "We cannot prevent our way out of the problem. We cannot intervene our way out of the problem. We have to have the essential element of reintegration for those whose lives have already been consumed."

Lizette Herrera voiced the fresh start she was given by working at Homegirl Café for the last year and a half in the original Boyle Heights location. The job, she said, "has been a real saving grace for me. It's helped me pay restitution fees to clear my record. It helped me help my family make ends meet and teaches me to be more self sufficient." Herrera will now work as a supervisor training new employees.

Homeboy Industries serves more than 1,000 young men and women from nearly 600 gangs in 45 zip codes each month. The largest gang intervention program in the country, people receive employment training, job placement, tattoo removal, counseling, anger management and computer classes.

"Everybody learns to recognize we're just exactly what God had in mind when God made us, and so we're hoping to inhabit that truth more and more and more," said Father Boyle. "We all want to be taught how to fly, and this is a place where that's learned."

Homeboy Industries, he said, is "a place where people try to re-imagine a different future."

Tony Solis, 28, one of the new bakers in training, said he had spent the week learning how to make a variety of muffins --- blueberry, chocolate, walnut and jalapeño.

"It's work," Solis told The Tidings, breaking open into a big smile while sporting an all-white baker's uniform. "There's nothing like having a good paycheck and going home and paying rent and providing for my daughter."

Rigoberto Quiñones, 17, was keeping the glass doors sparkling clean as hundreds of supporters toured the facilities. "I used to be in the streets breaking the law, but now I'm working here instead," said Quiñones. "I can help my mom with the bills. I don't want to be a slacker. I feel happy to have a job."

In his remarks Father Boyle expressed his profound gratitude to the women of Dolores Mission Church for their support for nearly two decades. It was the mothers --- many with teenage sons and daughters being lured into gangs --- who urged their then-pastor to intervene.

"I'm happy and grateful," said Lourdes Gonzalez of the new facility. A member of the Dolores Mission community since 1990 and a mother to three daughters, Gonzalez was present at the height of gang violence in Boyle Heights when shootings occurred nearly weekly.

"We've been with him for many years, and we've lived everything he's lived," Gonzalez said in Spanish while holding her baby granddaughter. "There were many shootings and many ugly things --- and now, finally, there's light."