Mobil Dealers Pledge $250,000 for Gang Members’ Job Training

In another sign that gang members are finding a niche in the post-riot economy, a group of Mobil Oil dealers Monday pledged $250,000 to a Los Angeles food bank, which will use the money to provide job training for 100 of them and eventually place them in positions at several Southern California corporations.

The money is being donated by more than 500 Mobil dealers, who have agreed to contribute 1/4-cent from every gallon they sell in the next two months to Love Is Feeding Everyone, or LIFE, a food program founded eight years ago by actors Dennis Weaver and Valerie Harper.

LIFE, which has given work to several gang members from Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights, will expand its food distribution network and train 100 more gang members by next year, organization officials said. Once they have been trained, officials said, the gang members will be hired by at least eight corporations, including Great Western Financial Corp., Great Western Forum, May Co., Frieda’s Inc., Loeb and Loeb, Ford Motor Co., Price Waterhouse and Mobil.

“If people do not have a fair opportunity, they feel hopeless, they feel resentful, they feel like they’re not part of . . . the American Dream,” said Weaver, as he stood with a group of ex-gang members outside a Mobil station at Western Avenue and Imperial Highway. “We want to give them an opportunity.”

The program follows several efforts aimed at improving the financial condition of gang members, including the selling of tennis shoes, long distance telephone service and a waterless carwash spray. Most projects have focused on Los Angeles’ black gangs, which emerged from the riots calling for economic opportunity. The LIFE program has built ties with the Eastside’s predominantly Latino gangs, which have complained that they are being left out of the rebuilding process.

“If it weren’t for this, I’d probably be out selling dope,” said Lupe Minjarez, 22, an ex-gang member who began earning $6 an hour in the LIFE food warehouse three months ago. “This way, you don’t have to watch your back or worry about nothing, just coming to work every day.”

The program was initiated by Mobil, which wanted to be a “good corporate citizen” in the wake of the riots, said Ken Strong, retail manager of Mobil’s Los Angeles district. The vast majority of the 600 local dealers, who pump about 60-million gallons each month, agreed to the contribution.

They turned to LIFE, which last year salvaged and distributed about 3 million pounds of food and hopes to double that in the coming year, said President James Schiffner. LIFE was working with Father Greg Boyle, Dolores Mission’s pastor, to provide employment for gang members from his parish. Although Boyle has left on a spiritual retreat, the church is eager to continue his efforts.

“It’s not just a question of feeding people,” said Father Tom Smolich, director of the church’s nonprofit arm, Proyecto Pastoral or Pastoral Project. “It’s giving people a means to earn that food themselves.”