Homeboy Industries, the world’s largest gang intervention, rehabilitation and re-entry program, will celebrate the grand opening of Homeboy Puppy Fades dog grooming salon at 10:30 a.m. Monday, April 21, at the new business, 446 S. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena.
The Rev. Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, will be on hand, together with Victor M. Gordo, mayor of Pasadena.
The dog-grooming salon is a new social enterprise for Homeboy Industries, one of 14 initiatives in its Homeboy Ventures and Jobs Fund. The Fund is a job creation and social impact business investment strategy that starts and acquires businesses, creating jobs for those who complete Homeboy’s 18-month reentry training program. The program offers formerly incarcerated and previously gang-involved people the chance and training to heal, redirect their lives and contribute to their communities.
The new dog grooming business is the second investment by Homeboy Industries in Pasadena. The first is a partnership with Tepito Coffee, a coffee shop and coffee-growing venture, that opened last August beside Vroman’s Bookstore.
Boyle founded Homeboy Industries 37 years ago and includes 14 social enterprise businesses. The program serves 10,000 people a year, who join a community of kinship, and offered free, holistic, wraparound services such as housing, education and legal services, tattoo removal, substance abuse disorder support, and mental health help. Last year, Boyle received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden.
Boyle spoke of the kinship he shares with the people he works with at the nonprofit in 2015, when he delivered the commencement address at Gonzaga University in Washington.
“It’s the privilege of my life to have worked at Homeboy Industries and…to have accompanied men and women, thousands upon thousands of gang members. The day won’t ever come when I have more courage or I am more noble or I am closer to God than these folks.”
In a Lenten presentation he delivered to a standing-room only crowd at Holy Family Church in South Pasadena on Feb. 18, Boyle spoke about belonging and “the healing love of God in divided times.”
“We learn to love others when we love ourselves,” he said. “And we learn to love ourselves only when we realize God loves us no matter what.”
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