Vincent Boettscher BoGray; Founder of Youth Program

Vincent Boettscher BoGray, 48, founder and president of Youth Opportunities Unlimited. BoGray started the Arcadia-based nonprofit organization in 1969. Through it, he established halfway houses for young people where recovering drug abusers and former gang members could live and receive group counseling. They were also given job training and placement opportunities to ease their way back into the community. BoGray also developed a program for public schools to dissuade youth from abusing drugs or joining gangs. He worked with law enforcement agencies and other public officials across the country to thwart youth crime and motivate achievement. Over 28 years, BoGray expanded his organization into a national foundation offering internships, mentoring and college scholarships as well as drug and gang prevention. The young people he helped gratefully called him “Dad.” On April 20 in Duarte of leukemia.