Growing up, I watched my mom get abused regularly. My father was a drunk, and I always worried about him fighting with my mom. This went on for years. On the night of August 28, 2009, my father came into the room screaming. My mom sat on the floor with my 3-year-old sister on her lap and my 7-year-old brother standing beside her. She pleaded for him to calm down and sleep because he was scaring us. My father pulled out a gun and pointed it at my mom. I put my small hands on the gun and begged him to stop. He removed my hands and pulled the trigger. I turned to look at my mom, who was now on the floor. ... I lifted her head and held her as she took her last breaths. Moments later, she was gone. 

Gabriela*, a high school senior, wrote these words as part of an essay for her college applications. When her mother died, Gabriela was 11, her brother was 7, and her sister was 3.

Statistics suggest that Gabriela’s chance at future success shouldn’t be high. In addition to experiencing trauma at a young age, she lives in a neighborhood known for gangs and poverty in central Los Angeles, California. Her grandparents, who moved from Guatemala to L.A. to care for Gabriela and her siblings, don’t speak much English and are unable to help with schoolwork. Despite the odds, though, Gabriela will graduate from high school later this spring, and in the fall she will begin her studies at a four-year university. 

Transforming lives through relationships

Gabriela’s story could have had a dramatically different ending, particularly in a neighborhood with a 40 percent school dropout rate. The same can be said of hundreds of other youth who come to the Bresee Youth Center each day. 

The center sits in the middle of a 1.75-square mile area known as the Rampart GRYD (Gang Reduction Youth Development) Zone. It’s the most densely populated area in Los Angeles County, with more than 75,000 people per square mile — including an estimated 805 active gang members who are responsible for nearly 25 percent of the city’s gang-related crimes. More than half of adults age 25 or older never finished high school. In this area of central Los Angeles, about one-third of families are living in poverty. At the Bresee center, though, about 90 percent of the youth served come from low to very low-income levels, and 80 percent come from single parent households. 

The numbers can be overwhelming, but instead of focusing on large numbers and statistics, the center’s programs emphasize one-on-one connections.

“Relationships transform lives,” said Seth Eklund, executive director of the Bresee Youth Center, repeating the center’s foundational truth. 

Covenant groups are the cornerstone of the relationship-building that takes place with youth at Bresee. In these small groups, a staff member meets regularly with three to five students, typically over a meal, for a full year. The groups use a character-based curriculum, but it’s not a class. Instead, the groups become a place where students can talk openly and honestly about what’s really going on in their lives with a mentor and peers. 

“It’s important for kids to connect to each other and to an adult on a deeper level,” Eklund said. “Over weeks, the groups have a deeper bond. ... They’re grounded.”

According to Eklund, the groups, which focus on middle school students, are key because “you’re finding your identity in middle school.” 

When students find a sense of identity and belonging through Bresee, they are less likely to seek out those things through gang affiliation. In fact, Bresee’s Gang Prevention program team has provided more than 400 of the most at-risk youth and their family members in their GRYD Zone with intensive case management, family counseling, and youth development activities. 

Staff members tell stories of the impact the Bresee center has had by steering youth away from gangs. Gabriel Diaz, who teaches graphic design to students at Bresee and is responsible for the center’s website design, grew up down the street. While he got involved in activities at the center, his best friend got caught up in a gang and wound up being killed. That could easily have been Gabriel’s story as well. 

Cynthia Calvillo, who has worked for two years as a family case manager at Bresee, also grew up down the street.

“I was introduced to Bresee in ’98,” she said. “My parents had split up, and I was hanging out on streets a lot. It would have been easy for me to join a gang. I was looking for a support system, to feel like part of something. ... Personally for me, Bresee has been a life changer.” 

Learning to lead 

Gabriela credits her own covenant group and relationships at Bresee with shaping her life, too.

“At Bresee, you build relationships with the staff,” she says. “I see them as friends, as people I can trust and talk to. Those relationships have changed my life. ... They [the staff] listen to what you have to say and you have a lot of opportunities to speak your mind. They don’t shut you out.”

Now, Gabriela is providing those kinds of opportunities for other students as a mentor through the center’s Goals for Life program. Through the program, older students work with younger students to provide homework help, lessons in life skills and boundaries, and a listening ear.

Luis, a student at a local community college, also served as a mentor through Goals for Life. He says the center was instrumental in his own journey as well.

“I didn’t think I had the leadership ability, but this [program] brought leadership out of me,” he said. “Here, youth take charge. Little by little, you get more responsibility. It has shaped my outlook on life.” 

Chheav Em, 30, who has directed Goals for Life for the past few years, says, “The programs here [at the Bresee center] give kids very specific opportunities. We’re trying to grow these kids. We say, ‘You take ownership of this,’ — helping them to see themselves as the change in their community.”

Chheav understands the importance of exposure to opportunities and learning to lead at a young age. Like 40 percent of the staff members, she is a product of the Bresee center herself. 

Without her time at Bresee, she says, “Many things would be different. ... I don’t think I would have been exposed to the same opportunities.” 

Through Bresee, Chheav was able to attend and graduate from Northwest Nazarene University on a scholarship. She says her parents, who fled to the United States from Cambodia, were unable to help her through tough times in college.

“[But] I could always call my mentors and others from Bresee when I felt like I wanted to leave college or whatever,” she said. 

Chheav, who is the only Christian in her family, also credits relationships at Bresee with her coming to faith.

“It [Bresee] shaped my worldview in more than one way,” she said. “Then, I questioned everything [about faith], but people would have conversations with me.” 

Giving back 

Youth leadership shows up throughout the Bresee center, which has employed hundreds of young people over the past 10 years. 

Students came up with the idea for the center’s longstanding interactive youth bank, which allows students to earn points they can “bank” to pay for activities such as field trips or outings to amusement parks. Points are earned by doing homework and other activities. The bank is also used to teach the concepts of saving, borrowing, spending, and investing. Youth are the ones who teach the financial literacy class. The motto that goes with the youth bank is “spend some, save some, give some away.” 

The concept of giving away goes beyond money and points to lives as well, according to Fonda Whitehead, director of development at Bresee. In addition to building relationships and developing leadership skills, she says Bresee helps students learn to go beyond themselves by giving back. 

Fonda models that principle herself. 

When she was a student at Bresee, she received the center’s first college scholarship, which allowed her to attend Northwest Nazarene University. After graduation, she came back to work at the center and has been instilling leadership in students for 19 years. 

Emma, a high school senior involved in Goals for Life, mentored eighth-grade students last year and is mentoring the same group this year as high school freshmen. She shares the story of one student who struggled with math last year and the way their work together helped that student to improve her grades. Goals for Life has changed the way Emma sees herself and her leadership abilities. 

“I feel like my life can impact other people’s lives,” she said. “Before, I didn’t see it, but now I do.” 

You can walk throughout the building and see the way the concept repeats itself over and over again. Pedro Joel Espinoza, for example, learned how to make films as a student at Bresee. After earning a university degree, he used video and photography as a documentarian and community organizer. Today, he coordinates Bresee’s teen technology center. 

As a teen, Cesar Ramirez came to Bresee because they were offering a free karate class. He stuck with it and then started his own martial arts studio. He wanted to give back, so he started a new karate program for the students at Bresee. 

Greg Monterrosa, another Bresee alum, co-founded the company MyLLC.com. As a way to give back, he has served on the scholarship board at Bresee, which has awarded more than US$530,000 in scholarships over the past 10 years. More than 110 students have been able to attend universities including the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania, and Smith College. 

As a student who is looking ahead to her own future, Gabriela says, “People have changed because of Bresee. It’s changing the lives of kids.”

To learn more about the Bresee Youth Center, visit bresee.org

*Name changed to protect privacy. 

--Republished with permission from the Spring 2016 edition of NCM Magazine

Note: The Bresee Youth Center is named after Phineas F. Bresee, first general superintendent and one of the Church of the Nazarene's founders. Bresee spent many of his early years in ministry pastoring and reaching out to the homeless in Los Angeles.