good evening and so wonderful to have you to alamy the cammies giving back program tonight we have a most profound program and a dynamic man mr andre from street yours this is a program that has made a profound i think difference in our community it has shown to give chances and hope to a lot of young me helos or i'm just so to have you with us thank you very much appreciate the opportunity to be here and what we like to do is you know we hear about the program we know about the streets soldiers or mystic and i like to hear about you and your story tell us about you i think that the audience needs to know that you made a difference and why the why is will be evident in my own story  then through some things that happened i had to go stay with my grandmother in richmond for a while and went to richmond high and then that didn't work out and came back to oakland and all of that started pretty much when i got to the seventh grade i was beat up a lot and picked and none of the adults at the school assisted me in those situations in those issues i felt that i was alone and came in contact with some older individuals who gave me some advice which a lot of the people called game nowadays and part of the advice that they gave me was that this is a cold world if you don't fight for yourself nobody gonna fight for you nobody going to help you unless you help yourself you've got take from people you've got to even be the victimizer you going to be the victim so at the time a lot of that was over my head i didn't have a lot of cousins i didn't have a lot of free and so i was basically on my own  and one day i just got beat up in my money to and i said enough is enough you know if they're going to be me now i'm a five bags start fighting and i actually won my first fight and i got props for that so i figured that if i'm a good props for fighting then i might as well fight all the time so my grades started to slip because i became more involved in trying to prove myself i became more the class clown and i became somewhat popular by hanging with a certain group of a group of young people so one thing led to another and that was in the early eighty's and around eighty four eighty five asked when the crack head oakland and then the landscape of everything changed it wasn't about how tough you was when is it about how much you can clown in class how good you can fight it was about how much money you can make friends in sixty seven sixty second in all this kind of stuff and a lot of them didn't have fathers but i did so there was still like some structure around me where i knew if i do certain things i get my neck broke remember what it was to be treated like a nothing so i'm not going to go back to that so i jumped into the game and started selling dope and all this stuff and everything that came along with it  n stopped going to school altogether and just invested all of my time into the streets and it took a friend of mine getting killed and in this situation where i was where it could have been me as well i decided to go home and get a jacket and didn't go back and he was killed a short time later so if i would have stayed  or if i would have been bad chances are i would have been killed too so it was the first time that i really had a chance to look at my mortality and the wheel started spinning but i spent so much time doing wrong i didn't know quite how to do right and i didn't know to process to go about to try to get into something that would move me pass everything i could start to say to feel that this wasn't the lifestyle that i've known it but i didn't quite know what else to do at this point and i can remember i went in auto my mama wanted to go back to school and she helped me navigate the system somewhat so i got into a castle summer school kind of like on a trial basis like ok we'll see what happens in after a while without having somebody there to try  to kind of work with me and got me through things pretty much gave up trying to do good because it seemed like every step that i took forward there was always something pushing me back or pulling me back and of course none of my friends were talking about doing anything positive they are talking about doing some out of pocket or wrong and i didn't want to come in approached him like a man i'm trying to go back to school blah blah blah that just when the conversation was going to happen with your partner so i got tired of kind of feeling like i was by myself and i was going to go back in and do the same stuff that i was doing before when i met dr marshall from om boys club and a teacher at the time for the summer school solve the m o t v and call them up an x could they come and give a presentation so the entire  dr marshall jack jack preston where the broader number of young men over to castle to talk about their lives and in the beginning i didn't know what to expect they all came in and they all  a lot of people because they looked exactly like we did but they were talking about going off to college and getting good grades and dealing with the situations that we were dealing with in a different way and so that piqued my interest got my ears open and then there was some dr marshall said to me that really caught that really caught my attention that if you knew what i knew you wouldn't do what you do and so i walked up to him and i asked him what is it that you know that would keep me from doing what i'm doing because i'm good at what i do and i enjoy it and so he asks well he gave me a quick history lesson and gave me school and i said man to be honest i'm just here to get a driver's license and he you must've thought i called him a m f or something because he went off when he was he was like a driver's license you mean the tell me there were people who  gave up their lives and who fought and struggled to give you the opportunity to go to school and get an education three in you're not taking advantage of it in the i was dumbfounded i didn't have any words to say because for one thing i didn't know all of that i didn't really know about the struggles that people went through to give us just the basic human rights and that that one time it was against the law for a black person to learn how to read or yeah and so i'm hearing that it is a really began to make me think about where i wanted to do with my life and that this was a person that i could attach my life to so i started going to the make a boys club and learning about myself i learned about myself who really was the effects of my actions on everybody and i learned that there are certain things that happened that i have no control over and even in family when family is messed up you have no control of over the family that you're born into but you got control over it and can do everything about the family that you create one day so learning lessons like that help me navigate help educate myself i got a ged for me so can you developments in  and then they sent me on a scholarship to grammar state well to morris brown college in atlanta georgia then i transferred to grammar state university where i got a degree in mathematics education came back and started teaching  school taught there for ten years became an assistant principal there and then worked as an assistant principal in madison and only about five years ago five six years ago dr marshall to me would i come to work for the organization i gave me a future and i say sure thing so in a nutshell explaining about my life is explaining exactly what we do as an organization we help young people achieve their dreams no matter where they're at there's you have young people that are doing things the correct way that just need incentive and need to know that hey it's ok to be good in society where it tells you be bad be bad guy yeah and you get rewarded for it well we're saying we're give rewards for keep own when the right thing the nerves the young people who are in the middle who have potential to do great things but have that other side tugging at them and then there's the young people that are totally off the hook and we work with all three of those types to help put them in a position where they can stay alive and free make good decisions and then use resources and opportunities affectively in their lives because when the thinking is wrong it doesn't matter whether you give a person a million dollars or you tell them i will guarantee you a college scholarship if they don't think correctly they're not going to use it correctly or we even look past it so a lot of the lessons have to come into play where young people have to be challenged and checked because we have a enormous amount of talent that's being wasted right now in the streets or in jails and all this stuff and so i devote a lot of my time working within the jails to help the young  men get more information so that they can make better choices because maybe just like with dr marshall dr marshall in change me he just set the conditions and gave me the resources an opportunity to change but i had to do the work of your mind to w you could do yourself exactly exactly and i mean this this is a profound story that i know that some of you out there might relate to might not relate to but the story that you were telling is a story that for me as an individual who worked in east oakland for years at a royal par as the director there and to see you come up from where you were to outstanding man that you are that are giving bag it's an honor it's truly an honor dr marshall i know him i met him years and years ago and i know his power and for him to effect to the way he did you already had it there he just needed to pull it out those of you out there who have the opportunity as i said to hear this story and want to help they'll make a boy's club is there a way that they can help history here as a matter of fact  we made a milestone we've been existing for twenty five years this year and we have a given as i spoke of earlier a college scholarship program where we help young people who want to go to any college that they want to go to they pick if we've had people graduate from the university of hawaii the university i have one friend to go to the university of virgin islands if i knew that i would hear her but but so  in a nutshell we do accept donations of any kind any sort to help fund the work that we do with young people can you give us the address and the phone number yes yes the address is ten sixty tennessee street san francisco nine four one zero seven the phone number is four one five eight two six eight six six seven or there's the e mail address in the website that they can actually pull a lot of information and that is w w w dot street dash soldiers dot org and the web site will direct them in many different directions in terms of how they can help lead some know which is currently going on and gives more information in terms of the type of work that we do with young people that's a perfect i mean the opportunity that we have as the public to give a helping hand to organization that's been together for twenty five years who have helped numerous hundreds of young people the success stories that you have can you give us a success story can you tell us about one situation that stands out more than any of that you've there's actually two one i want to say to this day we have one hundred sixty three college graduates and we have nine more who will be graduating this may there's and it's in a right of individuals who literally come from the joe house to the schoolhouse there was a young man that we met who was in y a for attempted murder on a police officer and he was there for a number for some time of course we've got he he came in contact when we went in did a  program there and and he stayed in contact and then when he got out he came in he did work with us and he eventually went on to morehouse who came from oakland who on his first night coming to the organization cussed all of us out and said we don't know what we do in the i got a hand on my business i got take care of my daughter and all this stuff and he was asked a question ok i hear you die for your daughter but when you live for your daughter and that dad gave him the moment of clarity that he needed to actually hear what was being said so he went through the process of work on his self and about three years ago i went to his college graduation from tennessee state and he graduated with a degree in criminal justice and he's now i believe a director of program director at treasure island job corps currently and he's also bringing young people to omega so that they could benefit from the program themselves and i just want to say one thing about perseverance a lot of young people feel that it's hard it's tough i got to wait for these situations to change i got away from my mom to get off drugs or my dad i don't know who years and all this other kind of stuff or the streets are hard out here you don't know how it is well none of that will ever change not because you as a young person you can only control what happens with you personally and so despite all of that stuff that's there you still have the opportunity to resources in a number of people that want to see you be successful in life and so for me when i got to college because all this time that i spent in the streets when i dig it up to me to go to college i didn't have not a clue what to do when i hit that campus i sat in class like what is going on here this man is put in with could be chinese on a boat as far as i'm concerned and i had to make a decision which in my going to let this stand in my way and go home or am i going to take advantage of this opportunity well i had to work my tail off and i had to catch up to everybody else in y failed stupid sit in the class and everybody else give me a ride on and i'm sitting there wondering what to do but that's what school is for it is to educate you if you don't know there is no embarrassment in it you have to put yourself in a position to learn those things and it has to come from you first worked very hard in that class in in the beginning going from an f i wanted up in a in that class and it was a math class so to bring it full circle i became a math teacher but when i got there our didn't know thing about math or anything else but it was the work that i had to do on myself in the work that i had to invest in and not allow those roadblocks to stand in my way and i had to surround myself with the right people because nowadays i know young people have my partners my cousins my girls and all this stuff and i'm not saying that they're bad in i'm not saying that they don't love or care about the people that they're around but the truth of the matter is they are suffering from the same sickness that's out there in the streets and if you say you really want to do things different you have to surround yourself with different people people that don't look like you people don't sound like you people that don't walk like you those are the people that bring information into your life that can help you move forward if you stick around people that only know which you know them which you're going to hear is this man it's hot out here let's let's go get hot or man let's go lip because that's all they know and they think they help you out with good advice but it's actually bad advice and it's disguised as good advice because when you learn the game the very things that you learn to survive in the streets of the very things that get you killed or gets put in jail but his discard in is done so well that we even defend the thinking but it's good for them right then right now but then when they look at it the end result is not good and there's no better for right to do for their future right in it's written it's already already because there's nobody who's gone through all of that unscathed unscratched in very few i don't know any really but very few can say i retired from the gang i retired and got all of this because of that in my pension for one k and all this kind of stuff it doesn't happen it's so sick that you can't even see the forest for the trees because  that or the big homeys are sitting there and if they if it works so good for them then why are they in exact same place in jail or on the streets telling six women you know that's the worst place or or pushing a shopping cart that you know all of those things are reality they're going to have are now tell me about girls i hear you talking about the young men and i know for me you know if we read the bible they're the main it's hold up of all the so we can only say boys so the name is deceptive but we do work with young ladies descend way we work with young men and they have the same opportunity and young ladies go through a whole lot and it starts from in a home from what they see some time from with their socialized in them you have t v you have music that always says something is wrong with you unless you have these outside things so the most important thing that we try to do is get them to see that the most important thing is you in your not a commodity to be bought sold or act like or treated like a possession you are precious you are beautiful you are gorgeous and you have so much potential and this comes from within not anything you can put in but something you can take out in and put it forward and for a lot of young ladies who don't have fathers we have to put on that hat that's why we have to act as fathers because a lot of times women get involved with men because they're looking for a fight they're looking for a father or they image of what a man is distorted it's all wrong because of what they're used to seeing and so we have to say that's not what a real man is this is what the definition of w man is a man don't define you he will come into your life on his own you don't have to do anything to go find him if you doing what you supposed to do the natural forces will take its place in all that will happen and we also give them a good idea of what is manhood but also what is not manhood because that's also insidious because everybody have everything backwards man don't lay on your couch they get you pregnant and say wait to check come home and then he much technology out there now there's a number of ways that we interact with the young people or get them engaged the number one which you said we go and do presentations speak or give classes to all kinds of organizations we work with schools we work with community based organizations afterschool programs juvenile halls all anywhere there's young people where there's a need at we will in and we will deliver the message so to speak and an invitation saying you can come here and we will help you achieve what you said you want to do and the bottom line we want you to stay alive and free if you can stay alive and you can stay free everything else can be worked out so and then there's the radio show that comes on from eight to team on sundays that dr marshall corinne irving and lady a stale host we have a lot so a lot of people call in get here different topics information get some some sound advice on situations and so young people come that way the other way is through word of mouth that young people bring their young people they they refer themselves or they say go to their pond as saying i have no there are some things going on i know where you can go where you can get help in a lot of people start off saying well i'm going for the scholarship but it's not a scholarship program it's a program to gears you around making good choices to stay alive and free in the payoff is discover ship if you do the things you need to do then that that's come part of it but the main thing is keeping you alive and free by your own decision making and allowing you to know what is a dangerous situation from a safe situation so to speak or what makes sense in which truly do not make sense and so tuesday nights  call the leadership academy all of this take place from five we have a program that runs from five thirty to ten o'clock at night the first half from five thirty to eight forty five eight thirty  we do the leadership academy where we have a math class where they have math and richmond and then we have life skills and literacy classes in all the while in the math class and in a lot of skills and literacy classes they learn how to make good decisions about everything and where is this program located is it in oakland san francisco it's san francisco and it's pretty much at the same address i gave earlier right in sixty two a c street stuff so is there a way that we can get something in can be of service and we can only go where we invited to go i would like that we got them means those of you out there who make the decision that this program is a worthy program oakland berkeley richmond anywhere the concept is the same saving you making a difference we need people out out there like yourself we always talk about giving back this is an opportunity the program the omega program is just outstanding in how it has for twenty five years given an opportunity for young people as mr akin's to do his best to make a difference you out there who want to make a difference mystery can say again where we can go from the community and donate and make a difference come on now yes let's address if somebody would like to mail in something is ten sixty tennessee street san francisco california nine four one zero seven phone number is four one five eight to six eight six six seven and then the web site where they can also pick the same information up  think there's even a tab on there where people can donate from the web site is w w w dot street dash soldiers dot org