Homeboys to Dough Boys : Former Gang Members Explore Better Living by Baking

They are young hands, at one time inclined to wield a weapon and flash signals in a brotherhood of violence. Now, they spend their days learning the ritual of coaxing unformed dough into loaves.

Homeboy Bakery is back in business.

After a brush with fiscal disaster, the bakery that was conceived as a recipe to end the urban warfare on streets around the Aliso Village public housing project may have found salvation with a combination of business savvy and street smarts.

Bolstered by advice from a seasoned restaurateur, a UCLA computer analysis and the promise of large orders from USC and White Memorial Hospital, Homeboy Bakery once again is finding work for idle hands.

Just six months ago, the bakery was at the brink of failure--the oven was broken, the ceiling leaked and chaos seemed to reign.

“We were getting in over our heads,” said Father Jerry Helfrich, director of Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission Church, the umbrella organization that oversees the bakery. “I just said, ‘Stop. Let’s get this thing organized.’ ”

The ensuing metamorphosis has been so complete, a health inspector on a return visit thought he was in a different building, said manager Ruben Rodriguez.

“The place was in a shambles,” Rodriguez said. “We were in trouble. The kids went through a very painful procedure. We didn’t know if we could survive.”

Survival meant remodeling the floor, the roof and everything in between. Homeboy’s operation now is smoother, aimed at supplying large institutions with simple but unique products, instead of a wide menu for a bevy of small retailers.

A former food-processing foreman, Rodriguez is determined to teach his nine employees how to run a tight ship by the time the test runs are over and serious baking begins later this month. He was enlisted for the job by Father Gregory Boyle at Dolores Mission, who asked him to try it out for two weeks. That was four months ago.

Boyle, who directs the Jobs for a Future program at the parish, has been blessed with a handful of mini-miracles. A Southern California Gas Co. worker brought the oven up to standards, free of charge. Later, he told Boyle he did it because his own son had fallen victim to a gang shooting. An exterminator who found out the bakery was a church project charged a wholesale price for the chemicals, and nothing for labor, he said.

And Jesse Leonard, a Santa Monica restaurateur who has hired workers through Boyle, spent hours on the telephone trying to keep Homeboy from getting in over its head. Her mantra: Keep it simple.

Homeboy also hired Nathan Dakduk, who learned to bake in Venezuela as a teen-ager, to guide the young bakers through their trial runs.

But it was USC, whose medical school is nearby, that stepped up and said it was ready to buy whatever the bakery can turn out.

“They said to start slow and work our way up,” said Boyle. “I give them a lot of credit. They could go anywhere else.”

USC has not signed a contract yet, but is firmly committed to helping the bakery, said Margo Allen, assistant director for dining services. “They’re a great bunch of guys,” she said. “You can tell they have a lot of aspirations. We want to help them get there.”

UCLA’s business school also provided a boost with a computerized cost analysis, said Rodriguez.

No government money has gone into Homeboy Bakery, Rodriguez boasts. But the area soon could become eligible for federal loans as part of President Clinton’s urban aid plan penned in response to the 1992 riots. Vice President Al Gore recently made a stop at Homeboy to tout the program, though the Secret Service felt obliged to keep him away from the homeboys with serious criminal records, Boyle said.

The bakery has made all the difference for people like Hugo Narvaez, 21, who sports a tattoo of his gang affiliation across the nape of his neck.

“I’m trying to show not all of us are out to hurt people,” he said, chopping chilies for the jalapeno-and-cheese rolls. “Given the opportunity, all of us would have a job. I got my homeboy Puppet and my homeboy Little Chopper to join.”

Fellow gang members were not instantly won over by Narvaez’ reformation nearly two years ago, he said. But they respected the decision.

“Now they’re waiting to get in,” he said. “Here, there’s actually a chance. Father Greg and Father Jerry are pushing us to get an education. They don’t want us to do this permanently.”

Narvaez plans to study at night this fall to finish the requirements for a high school equivalency degree. He was all but thrown out of high school the first time around--”dropped out, kicked out. I guess I was left with no alternative,” he said.

At 28, Armando Gomez has survived 14 years in the Tiny Dukes gang. He readily displays the scars of belonging: a bullet wound in his shin, stab puncture in his abdomen, and a scalp slash from a machete. “I’m lucky I’m right here talking to you,” he said, laughing.

Although Gomez also remains a nominal gang member--there is no retirement, he quips--he no longer looks the part. His hair is tied back in a ponytail, far from the regimental crew cut common to his former comrades. Like Narvaez, Gomez is trying to finish high school, which he left before his senior year.

“I never looked up to anyone. No one said, ‘Don’t do that. It’s wrong’ because they were afraid of me. I was too crazy,” he said, pointing to the younger homeboys. At 18 years old, you want to prove yourself, he said. Usually that means putting a gun in your hand.

On this particular night, Gomez has something else to prove--that he can knead rolls with the same hands that once helped steer his life off track.

“You don’t want to kill the dough,” coaches Dakduk. “Just a little bit.”

Dakduk holds up a cupped hand. “This is your mold,” he tells them. Clumsily, then more confidently, they mimic his motions.

“If you just give them a hand, teach them how to do things, they’re willing to learn,” said Dakduk.