AYE celebrates ‘hope’ at alumni/employer awards dinner

In his keynote address at the Archdiocesan Youth Employment Services 17th annual alumni and employer recognition dinner, Archbishop José Gomez zeroed in on one intangible — and often unfathomable — notion for today’s youth: hope.

“Hope, it is the richest encouragement that can ever be provided,” he observed at the Sept. 29 event at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel. “Hope is what is missing in too many young lives in our society today. And this lack of hope is the source of many of our society’s problems.

“So I think in hard times, my friends, we need to rededicate ourselves to this mission of bringing hope to our city. We need to have more of our leaders to see that we need to train a new generation of leaders who can make their gifts available to the community and our American public life.

“We need to keep encouraging our young people to work hard, to stay in school, to be serious about their faith and their studies and their relationships,” he said. “We need to keep their course of destination alive.”

Archbishop Gomez lauded AYE supporters, partners, mentors and staff members for offering hope to troubled at-risk youth through job training, education and counseling. He said it was vital in today’s near-recession economy, when young people — especially low income and minority youths — were struggling to kick-start fledgling careers, to help them develop the skills for and then find that first job.

“The bad economy makes the work you are doing so much more important,” he said. “In these hard times, we need to be more creative and innovative. We need to keep building those bridges, making new connections and strengthening our friendships and partnerships, working together to find new ways to get things done.

“The people in this room know that education and job training are essential to our society’s future. Education is the best gift anyone can receive. It is a treasure that never goes away. It is the richest encouragement that can ever be provided — the gift of hope.”

‘I was bad!’
As a teenager, Brandee Berry, the first AYI alumna to receive the evening’s exemplary award, was convinced her life would amount to nothing.
“Let me tell you, they say that kids are bad. I was bad!” she told nearly 300 people seated at round tables in the spacious banquet room. “I had been to many programs, like boot camps and other military style programs, and nothing could save me. So I didn’t have much of a choice when I came to AYE like other kids. My probation officer handcuffed me and took me to the office in Lancaster.

“The lady inside made me really sit down and have a talk with myself. She made me analyze what it was I wanted to do. I stopped barely sliding by in high school and I actually graduated early. I went to college, and I actually took it serious. So I owe AYE. They helped me overcome a lot of things.”

The theme of the downtown event was “Building Bridges to Success.” Kathleen Aikenhead of the William H. Hannon Foundation received the community leadership award; the award of excellence went to Marshalls; and outstanding mentor awards were given out to Climmie Jones of the Foshay Learning Center, Tecumseh Shackelford of MPYD, and Elizabeth Stanford of Bank of America.

The Archdiocesan Youth Employment Services of Catholic Charities of Los Angeles really had its beginnings in 1965, when the U.S. Department of Labor asked the fledgling grassroots organization to run a federally-funded job training program as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.

Since then, AYE has served more than 75,000 disadvantaged young people, many by paid job internships through partnerships with firms, including Bank of America, FedEx-Kinko and the Automobile Club of Southern California. The agency also collaborates with Los Angeles Trade Tech College, the L.A. Unified School District, Bresee Foundation, Covenant House, Marriott Foundation, Homeboy Industries and the University of Southern California.

Working in field offices in downtown Los Angeles, East Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, Hollywood and the Antelope Valley, AYE staffers have helped youths facing a plethora of social and personal problems: illiteracy, dropping out of high school, unemployment, substance abuse, broken families and crime.

Last resort
Jasmine Epps, another exemplary alumna award recipient, was living in her vehicle when she went to AYE. As a last resort, she turned to the organization, who found her a place to stay at the Good Shepherd Homeless Shelter. She then got a paid internship at Charles Drew University and found permanent housing. Today, she’s working on a college degree.

“Life has a way of throwing unexpected turns, and I never thought my life would change so drastically,” she said. “But it truly made me who I am. Thank you, AYE, for believing in me.”

For Jacqueline Gonzalez, AYE helped to pursue her dream of entering the medical field. The South Los Angeles young woman found herself unemployed and homeless after high school. She received counseling and a paid internship for 160 hours at the local AYE office. This motivated her to attend and graduate at the top of her class at American Career College and find work as a medical assistant at a Kaiser Permanente hospital. Now her goal is to become an RN and, eventually, a midwife.

“This program helped me through the most difficult choices throughout my youth,” Gonzalez declared. “I can really say that without AYE, where would I be right now? You helped me so much, with counseling, with my interview skills and also just knowing about the work environment.
“But, most importantly,” she added, “the program helped me find myself and what I wanted to do in life. I will be always grateful for that.”

Robert Gutierrez, a driving force with Archdiocesan Youth Employment Services for more than three decades, has literally seen thousands of youths radically change their lives with the help of AYE. The agency now has nine different programs, with close to 900 young men and women receiving paid internships this past summer. For many, it was their initial entry into the working world.

“A first job is very important, especially for some of the at-risk youths who may not have the proper adult guidance and support,” Gutierrez told The Tidings. “So they need to understand why continuing their education is important.

“But our primary job is really to help them develop a game plan for their future,” he stressed. “Where are you going to be five, ten years from now? We help them do some career exploration, and if there’s any deficiency in math, English or some other subject, we get them tutoring to help strengthen those skills. And maybe they have some other issues they need to deal with. So it’s a combination of things: job training, education and counseling.”

After a moment, he smiled. “People must say, ‘Here’s this senior citizen still doing this thing with youths for 35 years,” and AYE’s executive director breaks up. “But it’s good work. It’s God’s work.”