Wings Foundation on Rescue Voyage for Troubled Teens

Three weeks ago, seven teen-age boys stepped off a 58-foot yacht called Minot’s Light, which had docked in Santa Monica. For 11 days, they had sailed, slept and eaten together. Now, they were going home together--escorted by sheriff’s deputies to a maximum security youth camp in Las Virgenes.

The youths were not running from the law. As members of Wings Foundation, an Agoura-based, nonprofit organization, they were taking part in what founder and president Lee Stanley hopes will be a personal voyage to a better way of life.

Stanley, a film producer-turned-chaplain, created the organization with his wife five years ago to help incarcerated youths ease back into society and leave behind their destructive ways.

“When you are sailing, it tends to drop facades very quickly,” Stanley said. “The first day, you’re eager to pitch in. The second day, you want someone else to do things. By the third day, it’s just you and the boat. Sailing is just one way of showing these kids that there’s more to life than gangs and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.”

The cornerstone of Wings Foundation is its caretaker program, which provides a “Big Brother” type of model for boys upon their release. The boys meet at least once a week with their caretaker, who must have been active in a church of any denomination for at least one year. Wings Foundation caretakers provide companionship and friendship, many of them opening their homes when necessary.

‘Things That Fathers, Sons Do’

“We do things that fathers and sons do, like mow the lawn, paint around the house, or just grab a hamburger and talk,” says Fred Kurz, a senior marketing representative with Tandem Computers and a Wings Foundation caretaker for over a year.

“You can sit a kid down and talk all day about what’s right and wrong, but they don’t hear it. Allowing them to see someone live his life in an appropriate way is the best teacher, and that’s what tells them that their experiences to date don’t have to dictate the rest of their lives.”

Born in Vermont, Stanley, 43, came to California at age 20 intending to spend a few weeks sailing and snorkeling. Through a friend who worked in the motion picture industry, he was offered a job as an extra on the film “Von Ryan’s Express” and later studied acting at MGM. He became an actor and appeared in “The Mod Squad” and “The Graduate.”

He says he eventually became more fascinated by what was going on behind the camera. “One day, I made a suggestion for a line change in a picture I was in, and it was made,” he recalled. “When I saw the finished picture, I wasn’t so excited about being in it, as much as I was about having had some effect on choices and the ultimate direction of the film.”

Glamour Wears Thin

After what he calls numerous “fruitful years” as an independent film producer and director, the glamour of his lifestyle--including owning a home in Malibu Canyon--began to wear thin, he says. After having been married five years, Stanley says he realized he “wasn’t doing anything for anybody.” He adds, “I was a great consumer. Our lives were working, and we had all the outward signs of success, but we didn’t make a difference.”

It was then that he received a phone call from a friend, who urged him to come out to the county jail to participate in a prison Bible study. The experience, he says, changed his life.

“I had always had an opinion about people who were locked up,” he recalls. “I was separated from them, a different element of life. I learned that the ones I had been exposed to had made a terrible mistake in life, got caught, and they wanted their lives to work. They were reaching out their hands for help.”

Stanley visited the adult prison once a week for a year. After that, he was asked to show one of his films at a juvenile facility. The documentary, “Mountain Tops,” profiled a 23-year-old paraplegic who succeeds in reaching the top of a mountain. When applied to the lives of incarcerated teen-agers, he said, the story held a powerful message: “If you start and fail, do you hang it up, or do you dust yourself off and go for it?”

Stood Up and Cheered

At the end of the film, he said, teen-agers in the facility stood up and cheered.

Stanley later was given a tour of the facility by a 17-year-old boy who “hated me, hated camp, hated everyone, hated life. When I asked him what he wanted out of life, he had no idea. He had no concept of what could happen in a life.”

Stanley says he then began talking about what he envisioned some of life’s possibilities to be, and suddenly “saw this angry, bitter deadhead get excited.”

It was then that he decided to commit his life to the teen-agers and to become a Christian chaplain, in order to legally be able to have a positive effect on young lives.

“They let psychologists, attorneys and social workers come in to work with kids under 18,” he explained, “but I had no college education.”

Under the Christian Jailworkers Organization in Los Angeles, Stanley became an assistant intern chaplain and worked one-on-one with teen-age boys in Camp David Gonzales and other youth facilities. After a chaplaincy position opened up, he was offered the job and became a minister through the Church on the Way in Van Nuys.

Stanley and his wife, who each have two children from previous marriages and who now live in Van Nuys, appear to have a gift for drawing committed outsiders to their cause.

Last year, after tracking down the 58-foot ketch, Minot’s Light, in Sausalito, they pointed out to the owners that the vessel needed extensive repairs and had

been for sale for more than three years at $245,000. After explaining the purpose of Wings Foundation and the positive effect the ship could have on youths, Stanley persuaded the owners to accept $5,000 for two years and allow him to restore the yacht, after which time he would pay $125,000--or return it. That sum is due next year.

Other Donors Found

Numerous other individuals have donated either their services or products to help Wings Foundation show troubled youths a new side of life. Roy Hardy, owner of ERA Real Estate in Big Bear, for example, heard about the foundation’s efforts and moved out of his home for two nights to enable the teen-agers to have a place to stay while skiing last winter.

A local ski resort donated lift tickets and a ski rental store donated skis and boots. Pedro Guerrero of the Dodgers donated 100 tickets to Dodger games to allow the youths to attend.

The greatest offer of support, however, came from Stanley’s own family. “A while back, we were down to nothing,” he remembered. “We sold the house, and the cupboards were literally empty. I knew that I had committed my life to this, but I began to wonder about the cost to my family.”

His belief in his mission was reaffirmed from two sources. His 15-year-old son presented him with an envelope. Inside was the money he had been saving to buy a car. Stanley’s youngest son, then 9, also came forward to help. “He put an envelope in the mailbox with his total life’s savings--$9.32. He had written a note to me that said, ‘Go for it, Dad.’ ”

Linda Stanley, who many say “keeps Wings alive” through her answering of phones and overall dedication to the organization, believes that commitment is part of her husband’s nature.

‘I Guess It’s Part of Him’

“I’ve literally seen him go into a burning house and pull an unconscious man out, or stop by the side of the road hundreds of times to help people. I guess it’s a part of him,” she said. “He hates to see people in distress.”

In addition to its caretaker program, sailing expeditions and outings to such places as the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and Dodger baseball games, Wings Foundation also offers teen-agers help in getting jobs. Many youths who have committed themselves to the program attribute their new lives to the organization’s assistance and guidance.

“I’ve been in Wings, and out of trouble, for two years,” said 18-year-old Victor Anderson, who says the organization helped him obtain numerous jobs. “I was supposed to have been on parole for eight years, but I was doing so well that I got off two years early.

“I grew up without a father, and my caretaker helped me out, just showing me the good stuff that’s supposed to come out of a family. The way I was living, with all the drugs and hanging around people who were shooting other people, I’m convinced that without Wings, I’d be six feet under by now.”

Anderson and other youths who have successfully come through the program hope to pass on the gift they have been given by becoming caretakers themselves. When they reach age 21, Stanley says they will have the opportunity to do so.

Wings Wins Applause

Both Gutierrez and Birmbaumer have applauded Wings Foundation and lent their support to the organization’s efforts to offer guidance to juvenile offenders. Both men gave their permission for youths from Camp David Gonzales to be entrusted into Stanley’s care on the 11-day yachting expedition. It was the first time either men had allowed incarcerated youths to be released to an individual, except in cases of medical or family emergencies.

Gutierrez said his decision was based on the Stanleys’ obvious commitment, their favorable results working with probation officers, and the high success rate of the caretaker program.

“This wasn’t a man calling me up and saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got this big yacht docked at the marina and I’d like to take some kids out and have a party,’ ” Gutierrez said. “There obviously was a purpose and a design.”