Two Steps and you're up…

A caring relationship plus a job lift a gang member from the streets into the American Mainstream.
Hope Now For Youth is a local non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization endorsed by the Fresno Business Council and civic leaders whose purpose is to bring youth out of gangs and into the American mainstream through loving and caring relationships and jobs.
 

Hope Now For Youth recruits and employs minority college students to serve as both role models and vocational placement counselors who find gainful employment for at-risk gang young men, ages 16 to 24. As of April 15, 2004, we have placed 1047 youth, most of whom are dropouts with criminal records, in jobs with 275 Fresno and Sanger businesses with an 85% success rate and an 8% recidivism rate. Almost all of these youths have criminal records and over 65% are school dropouts. No fees are paid by businesses or the youths for our service.

  
 
The philosophical basis of Hope Now is the Judeo-Christian ethical value system…because it works! Change in a young person's life occurs only through a long-term relationship of love, help, and understanding. Hope for a better future comes from faith in a loving God who holds the future in his hands.
 

Hope Now For Youth is a cost-effective method for dealing with juvenile crime. Just how effective can be determined from the fact that it costs $50,000 per year to incarcerate and adjudicate a youth, only to make him worse. By contrast, it costs just $5,000 for Hope Now to do the relationship-building, (re)parenting, mentoring, job preparedness training, job development and job placement and follow-up to lift an at-risk youth from the streets into the American mainstream. Marriage and Family Classes are offered to further stabilize the youth and his loved ones. Hope Now's current budget of $581,000, provides for eleven full-time employees, and is supported by concerned individuals, service and professional organizations, churches, businesses such as Target Stores, and foundations including the Bonner Family Foundation, the Fresno Regional Foundation, the Smittcamp Family Foundation and the Bertha and John Garabedian Charitable Foundation.

As a Christian organization, we believe that spiritual hope offered through caring relationships is essential to long-term personal change. Churches committed to their neighborhoods donate office space so that no funds are expended for facilities or utilities. And each dollar given to support our counselors to reach at-risk youth also enables these ethnic collegians to finish their undergraduate education. That's a lot of bang for your buck!

There is Hope Now for gang youth, young men who need to believe they have a good future and who can work toward it in a job. For youth living at the level of survival, it's "job first, education later." The best way to protect your investment in this community is by investing in these youth. How can you help us?

 



Hope Now For Youth was founded in Fresno, California on February 1, 1993 to hire Christian collegians to work out of churches as Vocational Placement Counselors for at-risk and gang young men, ages 16 to 24. On September 9, 1996 Hope Now expanded its life-changing ministry to the nearby city of Sanger.

Working currently out of seven churches in Fresno County, our staff meets youth in the neighborhoods, playgrounds, pool halls, recreation centers, and malls of each city, as well as receives referrals from Hope Now transformed youth and law enforcement officers. Three of the youth we lifted from the streets into the mainstream are now attending college and working as Hope Now counselors. Through building the first caring male relationship a youth has had, and by placing that youth in a job, "throwaway kids" become taxpayers instead of tax burdens, men with a future that now can include school. A Hope Now For Youth Scholarship Fund has been established at Fresno City College to encourage these youth to further their education.
 

    On March 21, 1994, four of our youth were placed at Valley Children's Hospital. This leading Fresno employer was so impressed with their performance that a total of 25 youth have been employed to date, of which 21 have been successful. On March 7, 1994 Retlaw Broadcasting Company, KGPE-TV, hired a Hope Now youth to become a camera operator. On August 8, another youth was employed. Piccadilly Inn Hotels, Fresno Plumbing and Heating, Valley Truck Parts, Quickie Designs, Paper Pulp & Film, Pepsi Cola Company, St. Agnes Medical Center, Community Medical Centers, Quiring Corporation, Radisson Hotel and California State University, Fresno are also among the many community-minded businesses which have employed Hope Now Youth.


 


 

 

Based on the examples of our Lord Jesus Christ, Hope Now For Youth provides opportunities and support for young men who want to break their ties with gangs, by changing their lives and becoming productive, responsible and law-abiding parents and citizens. Hope Now accomplishes this by providing:

• A caring relationship which builds self-worth and confidence
• Models of Judeo-Christian values and work ethics which inspire productive citizenship
• Preparation for and placement in a job as an achievable economic alternative to gang crime and violence
• Scholarships which encourage further education
• Training of families in healthy relationships

 

 


 

Rev. Roger Minassian
President/CEO

Robert Taylor, Entrepreneur
Vice President

Necia Wollenman, CPA, Partner
Moore Grider & Company
Secretary

Ralph "Skip" Lynn, Jr.
Toter, Inc.
Member

Larry File, Owner
United Valley Insurance
Member

Marty Martin, M.D. Pediatrician
Peachwood Medical Group
Member

Capt. Joe Cole, USN (Retired)
Member

 

 

TREASURER/CFO
Dale Garabedian, CPA, Partner
Abaci and Garabedian
Treasurer/CFO

COUNSEL
Robyn Esraelian, Esq. Partner
Richardson, Jones and Esraelian
Legal Counsel

 

 


[ listed alphabetically]
 

Mayor Alan Autry
City of Fresno

Rick Berry, President
Cal Custom Tile

Richard "Gus" Bonner
The Bonner Family Foundation

Kathy Bray, President
Denham Personnel Services

Tal Cloud, Vice President
Paper Pulp and Film Converters

Teresa Davis
Supervising Parole Agent
California Youth Authority

Chief Jerry Dyer
City of Fresno Police Department

Larry Garabedian, President
Valley Truck Parts

William Haug, President and CEO
Children's Hospital Central California

Richard A. Johanson, Board Chairman,
Johanson Transportation Service, and
President, The Fresno Business Council

Rev. G. L. Johnson, Pastor
The Peoples Church

Dr. Peter G. Mehas, Superintendent
Fresno County Office of Education

Jim Rowland , Retired Director
California Department of Corrections

J. Wallace Upton, Esq., Partner
Kimble, MacMichael & Upton

 
 

 


 

Rev. Roger Minassian
Executive Director

John Raymond
Executive Associate

Joan Hensleit-Minasian
Operations Manager

 

Yue Pheng Vang
Vocational Placement Counselor

Sergio Perez
Vocational Placement Counselor

Jesse Castro
Vocational Placement Counselor

Joe White
Vocational Placement Counselor

Vanna In
Vocational Placement Counselor

 

 


Hope Now Purpose Statement:

Hope Now For Youth is a Christian emergency rescue team for young men, ages 16 to 24, who are gang members or have criminal records. Through caring and helping relationships and employment, we aim to lift gang members from the streets to the American mainstream. We are motivated by our Lord Jesus Christ's concern for the poor, the fatherless, and those oppressed by violence. Through deed and word, we strive to present Jesus Christ as the hope for life and life eternal, Almighty God as the heavenly Father who cares far more than we do, and the Church as the loving family which will never abandon you. Like our Lord, however, we will not allow fulfillment of our spiritual hopes for these men to become a condition of our help. To fall short of providing loving encouragement and gainful employment for any young man who sincerely desires our assistance in leaving the streets is to consign him to prison or death. God helping us, we will not fail to always offer life.