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?