Helping Kids Reach for the Sky

Former ZFellow and current Community Investment Partner, Bob Cabeza, was featured in an article "Helping Kids reach for the sky at the Y" by Greg Mellen. Here's an excerpt from the article.

Beyond the rough neighborhood that surrounds the Downtown Y in Long Beach, California, fits the usual perceptions of the organization that provides after-school activities for so-called "at-risk" teenagers, as well as a wide range of social and academic services. This is no average after-school hangout or homework help space for kids from the 'hood. It is so much more.

At its core is Cabeza, 46, a dynamo whose professional life is about helping kids. "It's a sacred job to help someone in the developmental process of their life," Cabeza says.

Its technological prowess may be what the Downtown YMCA is becoming known for, but it's only a tool, according to Cabeza.  The centerpiece of the Downtown Y, however, is its technology lab, where the group's highly successful summer Youth Institute is held.

From its 8-year-old Youth Institute, which teaches an array of digital media skills to urban kids, to the Y-created Change Agent Productions digital arts and consulting firm, to an array of after-school programs it oversees, the Downtown Community Development Branch YMCA is a hub in the heart of downtown.

Change Agent Productions, a community enterprise funded by ZeroDivide, is in its nascent stage, but appears to be on the cusp of big things, already creating documentaries, working in Web development and selling Apple equipment and training other nonprofits in digital media use.  The 20-something, tatted and pierced staff, most of them former YMCA kids, aren't your typical corporate types. But they are the driving force behind a nonprofit digital media training, video production, graphic design and consulting service that did more than $300,000 in business advertisement last year - only its second year of operation. 

Every year since 2001, 40 kids are recruited to attend the eight-week, 40-hour per week class. Cabeza deliberately tries to pick the kids who face some of the biggest hurdles and toughest life circumstances. "These kids' only crime is being poor, and in this country it is a crime to be poor," Cabeza says.

Divided into teams of mixed genders and races, participants in the Institute must produce a short film, a Web site and a magazine. "This is where the magic happens," says 16-year-old Cabrillo junior Ramona Vera with a smile as she heads into the lab.

Another team member, Leonard Salcido, sits behind a computer surrounded by a half-dozen Gibson guitars. A regular at the YMCA since he was a fifth-grader, Salcido is a bundle of technical and artistic talent. "I literally grew up here," Salcido said. "Bob and (Y Institute Director Les Peters) are like my fathers. I went through a lot of stuff and this was the only place I could count on."

Proof of the program's success and Cabeza's influence are everywhere. And it's both anecdotal, like kids who are now attending top-level colleges, and statistical.

Cabeza's numbers show that 80 percent of the Youth Institute members who graduated from high school went on to college. The program has also been the subject of papers published in academic journals by faculty from Cal State Long Beach.

Among the findings in those reports: significantly higher GPAs for Youth Institute participants than matched high school students after intervention; significantly fewer absences; and they were positively influenced in leadership, technology and educational attitudes. 

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