Teen’s strength, power lie in his art

Joe needs camp.

Growing up in a tough East Los Angeles neighborhood, the 17-year-old doesn’t let his guard down much.

Even at the after-school program he attends twice a week, his mind is often preoccupied with the person who picked on him at school or his immigrant family’s struggles since leaving Mexico a decade ago.

“Camp is a safe haven,” said Jacob Bastian, a family ministries associate at the Fred Jordan Missions where Joe attends the after-school programs. “It’s a chance to forget the city, meet new people and be in a positive atmosphere where people are nice.”

About three years ago, Joe started a tagging crew with some of his friends. It wasn’t a gang; they mostly just ran amok around their turf, marking their territory with spray paint.

He saw some of his friends get severely beaten or killed. After a year, he realized that if he didn’t change his ways, he would never survive.

About the same time, he stepped into a yellow school bus that transported him downtown to the Fred Jordan Missions for an after-school tutoring and enrichment program and dinner. He’s been getting on that bus twice a week ever since.

When the high school senior is not at the mission or school, he is with his family listening to Latin music and drawing.

Having bowed out of the crew, he says he can’t venture outside his home because his old friends lurk, ready to start fights.

His family has been affiliated with the mission for a decade, receiving bags of clothes and food a couple of times a month. The family needs the help more than ever since Joe’s mother was laid off from her factory job in April. The family of five -- Joe has two younger sisters who are 10 and 13 -- live off their stepfather’s Social Security.

A week in the mountains last year positively influenced Joe, so the mission sent him again this month with help from the Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Fund.

At camp last year, Joe learned that everyone has a gift to use for helping people and improving the world.

Joe’s gift is art, Bastian said. With a little encouragement and praise, Joe is channeling his artistic skills into simple, constructive gestures. He even drew a cover for a mission brochure.

“We encourage him to follow his dreams, and he responds,” Bastian said.

“It’s kind of where his childlike attributes come out. He blushes, or says, ‘Oh, no.’ So we’ll hang it on the wall to show him we aren’t lying.”

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About 11,000 children will go to camp this summer thanks to the $1.4 million raised last year.

The annual fund-raising campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund, a fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which this year will match the first $1 million in contributions at 50 cents on the dollar.

Donations are tax-deductible. For more information, call (213) 237-5771. To make credit card donations, visit www.latimes.com/summercamp. To send checks, use the attached coupon. Do not send cash.

Unless requested otherwise, gifts of $25 or more are acknowledged in The Times.