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Former inmates often struggle adjusting to everyday life. In this episode, we talk to Joe Gilbreath, founder of RiseUp Industries and Mike Lucero on bringing hope to those adjusting to life after prison.
riseupindustries.org
Cy Kellett:
Taking Jesus seriously about visiting prisoners. Folks from Rise Up Industries, next.
Cy Kellett:
Hello, and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding and defending your Catholic faith. I’m Cy Kellett, your host. And today a special bonus episode.
Cy Kellett:
Jesus has so many good friends. Sometimes his very best friends are very close to you and you didn’t even know it. And just a few miles away from us, a wonderful ministry, a ministry that started with visiting prisoners and now is working on keeping people out of prison, keeping people out of the kind of life that leads to prison and helping those who are out of prison.
Cy Kellett:
Some of whom have spent most of their life in prison or similar institutions and helping them to get the training and the support and the help that they need to thrive in the world. It’s called Rise Up Industries to guests, Joseph and Mike here to talk about it. Here’s what they had to say. Mike Lucero and Joe Gilbreath. Thank you both for being here with us on Catholic Answers Focus.
Joe Gilbreath:
Pleasure being here.
Cy Kellett:
I’m very interested in what you do. We do a ministry here that’s all talk and no action. It’s very nice to have guys in here whose ministry is action. So, which of you was first related to Rise Up Industries? Who got there first?
Joe Gilbreath:
I was.
Cy Kellett:
All right. So, tell us a little bit about Rise Up Industries then and how you became associated with it, if you wouldn’t mind.
Joe Gilbreath:
Okay. Well, Rise Up industries is a nonprofit and our mission is to minimize street gang activity in San Diego by providing integrated gang prevention, gang intervention, and post-attention reentry programs. And we got started, a number of us had been working Kairos Prison Ministry, and one of the inmates… we were working at Donovan. And one of the inmates who had been through Kairos had read one of the books going around the Kairos community, which was Father Boyle’s book Tattoos on the Heart.
Joe Gilbreath:
And he challenged one of the Kairos volunteers to invite Father Boyle to come down and speak in Yard A at Donovan. So, the invitation went out and Father Boyle accepted it. And in June of 2012, he went down to Yard A to speak to the inmates. I knew he was going down and I wanted to hear more about Homeboy Industries. I knew a little bit about them, but I wanted to learn more about them because I’d talked to a couple of inmates who were getting ready to be released.
Joe Gilbreath:
And I asked him what their plans were and they were clueless. So, I figured I wanted to learn more about Homeboy Industries, because it may be a good program to refer guys to. So, anyway, after Father Boyle spoke, we were walking back to our cars. And I asked him if Homeboy Industries was just up in LA and he said, “No, we’re in about 25 other locations. They’re not called Homeboy Industries.
Joe Gilbreath:
They’re owned 501(c)(3). But they’re modeled after us. And we helped stand them up.” So, I said, “Well, do you have anything happening here in San Diego?” And he said, “No, why don’t you start one?”
Cy Kellett:
And you were hooked?
Joe Gilbreath:
I was hooked.
Cy Kellett:
So, wait, one thing I didn’t get, so Donovan state prison, big state prison down near the border here-
Joe Gilbreath:
Yes.
Cy Kellett:
… in San Diego. Why are you there? What were you doing at, at Dono?
Joe Gilbreath:
I was working in Kairos Prison Ministry.
Cy Kellett:
I got you. Okay.
Joe Gilbreath:
Are you familiar with Kairos?
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Yeah. Kairos is the Catholic version of a… am I right about that or is it-
Joe Gilbreath:
It’s a Christian.
Cy Kellett:
It’s generally Christian.
Joe Gilbreath:
It’s non-denominational.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. But you were working there as a-
Joe Gilbreath:
As a volunteer.
Cy Kellett:
… as a volunteer ministry?
Joe Gilbreath:
We would go in twice a year and put on a three-day retreat. And they were pretty remarkably changed. They turned guys’ lives around in just three days. And so, I got drawn into that and was very interested in continuing to work on that. But anyway, that’s when the invitation went out to Father Boyle.
Cy Kellett:
And so, you started Rise Up Industries, which is modeled after Father Boyle’s work in Los Angeles with Homeboy Industries?
Joe Gilbreath:
That’s correct.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. I got you. All right. So, Mike, you’re up. I made him go first because your reputation is that you don’t stop talking once you start.
Mike Lucero:
My story’s a little shorter.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, it is? Okay. All Right.
Mike Lucero:
I’m from East County, but I was serving a 17-year prison sentence recently. I was released October 30th last year and just literally a few months before I came home through a pamphlet and then somebody at a Kairos Group, it’s like an aftercare group they have, I showed it to them there and I said, “Hey, there’s this program by where I’m from.” I’m from El Cajon originally. And they said, “Oh, that’s Rise Up. That’s a good program.”
Cy Kellett:
Really?
Mike Lucero:
And they told me about it and I didn’t know nothing about it. I just seeing all these guys smiling in the picture. And I was like, “Man, that’s where I’m at.” I didn’t know they had programs like that here. Because I grew up here.
Mike Lucero:
There’s never been anything like this here. And I wrote Joe and Joe wrote me back. And it had a big impact on me because I was grateful that hope was available where I was from.
Cy Kellett:
Isn’t that some?
Mike Lucero:
Yeah, it was really cool.
Cy Kellett:
It’s important that’s in your hometown, like where you’re from.
Mike Lucero:
Yeah, that meant a lot to me. It meant a lot to me. So, I wrote Joe again. Because I made sure I wanted to be known that I wanted to come here. Joe was real thorough and just explained the program and also their limitations of the amount of members, but that I was more than welcome to come down.
Mike Lucero:
So then, my mom came down and bought some donuts and met with Joe. I also had a cousin that was very successful with Homeboy Industries in the Los Angeles area. And he encouraged my family to, “Tell him to go down there, definitely if he wants to succeed.” So, I got out on a Saturday. And Monday morning I met with Joe and Jonathan, the deputy director there and did an application and shared with them.
Mike Lucero:
They talked to me about the program and said I would be considered for admission. I went through a series of different interviews. I met with the guys and the other staff there and did a psychological evaluation. They didn’t have an opening until January. So, during that time it was really cool because they continued to interact with me, make sure what were some of the needs that I needed and what resources were out there if I needed temporary work or not.
Mike Lucero:
They would refer me to those places. Also with inviting me to talk to them and let them know if I needed anything, giving me their numbers. And then, through the holidays, checking on me periodically making sure I was okay. And I was really grateful for that, and that meant a lot. I felt that there.
Mike Lucero:
I was like, I was working somewhere else, but I just felt with I haven’t been out of prison or any type of custody since I was 12 years old for that long. And I felt if I could go to a place that can get me to 18 months that would be a success in my life. So, close to the beginning of the year, they invited me to become a member. And on January 17th I got to start there and probably one of the greatest things I’ve ever done. I love it there.
Cy Kellett:
Wonderful.
Mike Lucero:
We’re grateful for it.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. So, let me just ask you this coming out of prison, how important is work? Because I imagine it’s difficult to find places that want to hire someone who’s just been incarcerated just months or weeks before.
Mike Lucero:
It’s really hard because there’s these false notions out there that like there’s, don’t check the box in California and things of that nature.
Cy Kellett:
Because if you check the box-
Mike Lucero:
Well, the thing is they ask you, “Have you been convicted of a felony within the last seven years?” Well, if I just did 15 years in prison-
Cy Kellett:
Obviously, no.
Mike Lucero:
… seriously I haven’t. So, the answer is no. However, there’s a clause in there and what it is, it’s a loophole, if you’ve been released within the past year from custody that they’ll be notified. So, I went down to Amazon immediately and a few, actually three other places and all three places hired me in the first process.
Cy Kellett:
Really?
Mike Lucero:
But asked me about my history. And I was very honest and open with them. They said, “Look, that’s over seven years ago. You’re good. No big deal.” It was always at the second portion of being interviewed where they told me like, “Your background’s not clear at all,” because of a conviction I had over 15 years ago because I’d just been released.
Mike Lucero:
So, that was hard. And there was work available. I ended up getting on at the shipyard, which was delayed because the hiring process there, they had to bring somebody else back in. And it really conflicted with my schedule. It was far from home.
Mike Lucero:
So, I was doing demolition basically on call. So, some nights it was midnight, some days it was during the day. It wasn’t very consistent. But it was brutal work. I mean, I’d come home bleeding and all messed up and my wife had a hard time with it.
Mike Lucero:
But I was grateful. It got me through the holidays, but it also I was able to do it knowing that Rise Up offered me that position. They don’t hire anybody, but guys out of prison. So, I was like, “Well, that’s me.” So, it was cool.
Cy Kellett:
I knew you were going to get past the second part of the interview with that one.
Mike Lucero:
That’s great. Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
All right. So, what do you do now at Rise Up Industries?
Mike Lucero:
Right now at Rise Up I’m in the training process of becoming a machinist or a CNC machine operator. And it’s quite a trip because I didn’t know nothing about this trade. I’d been involved in welding and some other stuff, but there’s just such a vast amount of information that goes into making a part on a machine. But it’s cool. It’s like these guys know… they’ve definitely figured this stuff out where they know what we need.
Mike Lucero:
They’re like, “These guys are going to use math. We use numbers. There’s tolerances and measurements.” And some of these guys haven’t been to school in a long time. So, it was really cool the first 60 days, a lot of that was intimidating.
Mike Lucero:
But they literally have a guy that was a math teacher for over 10 years, an engineer of himself, he would come in and meet with us weekly for two hours. And just walk you through the basic repetitions of mathematics you need to use every day just to remember the stuff. And I went from doing decimals and fractions to understanding sign, co-sign and tangent geometry and things of that nature. So, with learning that, it really built my confidence and understanding what I could do. So, I do that.
Mike Lucero:
I’m also learning the basic foundations of engineering, how to make these things, how parts are interchangeable and basically how to create things. In the process, I get a lot of hands-on opportunities on the machines. We run parts. We keep a traveler. There’s guys there that obviously know a lot more than us.
Mike Lucero:
They walk us through stuff. They’ll ask you, “What’s going on now? Or what happened? How did you get here?” And I think that’s really cool because it’s not somebody that’s annoyed by our questions, but it’s somebody that’s invested in us.
Mike Lucero:
And there’s not a day I haven’t left there where I’m like, “That was enjoyable. That was really cool.” So, it’s a trip because I’ve never had a job like that in my life before. So, it’s definitely a pleasurable thing.
Cy Kellett:
Before I go back to Joe, Mike, why was 18 months important to you?
Mike Lucero:
Eighteen months was important to me because since I was 12 years old, I’ve been involved in the juvenile justice system. Prior to that from about age 10, maybe a little younger, I was involved in child services. And I’ve never been out of any type of institution for a year of my life since those ages. And 18 months was like, that would be success for me. I haven’t been out 18 months my entire life.
Mike Lucero:
So, I thought that was cool. A lot of guys see it the opposite. Like that’s a long commitment. I’m like, “That’s a commitment. Like if I make it to the end of that, I’ll feel like a miracle happened in my life.”
Mike Lucero:
And I thought that was neat. These are people that sit on staff and come in everyday and invest in us as human beings. And that meant a lot to me to be a part of something bigger than myself, to be part of a community of friends and brothers that all have a positive motive, opposed to gang involvement or a subculture of drug addicts, things that I’ve been familiar with. So, it was something that appealed to me. And I’m really grateful that it existed.
Cy Kellett:
That’s extraordinary, Mike, and congratulations on all your success.
Mike Lucero:
Thank you.
Cy Kellett:
But after this, you can explain to me what co-sign and sign and tangent is. Because I didn’t-
Mike Lucero:
It’s trippy.
Cy Kellett:
I didn’t get that. So, Joe, what’s the idea behind Rise Up? I mean that you want to help guys who have been incarcerated primarily to get to a position where they don’t have to be in that life anymore?
Joe Gilbreath:
Well, that’s one of our points of interest. But our real motivation is to minimize street gang activity. Because our youth are being recruited in the gangs as early as age 10. Some reports indicated as early as age seven. And the number one reason that they give for joining gangs is to have a place to belong.
Joe Gilbreath:
Many times they’re coming from… well, they’re mostly in poverty neighborhoods. Both parents were working long hours to make ends meet or broken homes. And they’re falling behind in school, being ostracized and they need a place to belong, somebody to accept them. And the gangs are there with open arms to accept them. And then, they bring them into this culture of gang life.
Joe Gilbreath:
Gangs are responsible for between 50% and 90% of violent crimes in most jurisdictions. And it’s because they’re recruiting these youth in and getting them involved. Then, they go into the youth detention facilities and that just builds upon the gang mentality. And then, they ultimately get incarcerated. In prison, racism is alive and well, they operate by race and the gang mentality continues to grow.
Joe Gilbreath:
One of our first members… actually our second graduate in the program when he was four years old, his stepfather was taking him to home burglaries. When he was 11 years old, his goal in life was to go to San Quentin prison to link up with his father and his uncle. When he was 17, he committed a homicide. He ended up spending 42 years in prison. He came out and he came into our program.
Joe Gilbreath:
And he didn’t know what a cell phone was, didn’t know anything about computers, but he graduated with our program, got hired by a local manufacturing company, got number of pay raises and got moved to a supervisory position. He now has custody of two of his grandchildren because his son and the mother of the children are both incarcerated. And he said, “Looking back on my father’s life, my life, my son’s life and now at my grandchildren, the cycle stops here. We’ve got to break this inner generational life cycle of crime and gang involvement.” I mean, this is America.
Joe Gilbreath:
The land of opportunity. People are immigrating to the United States from around the world for better opportunities. And here are our youth growing up in our impoverished neighborhoods think that they have no other choice, but to join a gang. We think we can do better.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. So, El Cajon why’d you end up here? I mean, just so that our listeners know this is where our offices are here in El Cajon. How about how far would you say your offices or your facilities are from here, from where we are right to this minute?
Joe Gilbreath:
It’s a four-minute drive.
Cy Kellett:
Four-minute drive. Okay. So, why? Why here?
Joe Gilbreath:
Well, first when we started this, we thought we needed to be in a gang neutral or a neighborhood. Okay? And so, that’s what we were looking for. But predominantly one of our friends was able… who had a facility here in El Cajon actually leased us a garage, 500-foot square foot garage when we started up at a very low rate. And then, after our first year of operation, we expanded. He had another facility that he subleased to us.
Joe Gilbreath:
And so, having those facilities in a gang-neutral territory, close to public transportation was what was driving us. The work in our machine shop were predominantly the majority of the time that our members are in the program, they’re being trained on CNC equipment. And we train them… on, on the job training on contracts work. Our contract work is expanding. We’ve got some high-end customers that one, like our mission, two, like the quality of the product that we produce and want to give us more and more work.
Joe Gilbreath:
We were actually jammed right now. And so, we’re looking for a new facility. We’re in a process right now of looking at a facility that’s Ranchita and which would allow us to expand our machine shop, double our enrollment capacity and to take on more contract work as well. So, anyway, that was the reason we started in El Cajon. Just we had that opportunity.
Joe Gilbreath:
Now, we have an opportunity to move to a much larger facility and expand our program so we can serve more members. We also want to start the second prong of our mission and that’s gang prevention. And so, this facility will give us more space to be able to do that. We’re very interested in beginning working with the at-risk youth to help them to avoid the cycle that these guys are going through. And the inspiring thing for us is that most of our members and our graduates really want to work with at-risk youth. And they’ve been involved with a number of speaking engagements and encouraging the youth to recognize their self-worth and their value and to help them make positive life choices.
Cy Kellett:
You’re nodding, Mike, is that what you’d like to do?
Mike Lucero:
Yeah. Well, it’s exciting. I get to do that now. Rise Up has given me so many different opportunities to share with people. One of the places that we have gone to recently is downtown. And it’s a transitional school for people that are… kids that are homeless, kids that are in residential treatment, kids that are in all kinds of different compromise situations.
Mike Lucero:
And to get to go down there and look at a school that offers resources to the families, as well as educating the child during the day offering mental health services, offering food resources to the parent’s laundromat, showers, all those things. That was really cool. Because I saw a place like that and I thought, “Man, something like this how much further could me and my mother got in life?” So, for me to get to go down there and share was like, it was a life-impacting place for me to see. We’re starting to get to go there more often. There’s other opportunities that I’ve had outside of here where I’ve got to share my story.
Mike Lucero:
And recently at Grossmont Community College, because I attended their last semester. I got to just talk about my life experiences there with some of the younger kids and people that are involved in the incarcerated group up there. Those are really cool messages to get out and Rise Up really has a desire to do that. They want to impact the youth level of where kids come into gangs. And I know for me it’s like you heard messages back then, but it was really limited.
Mike Lucero:
They usually brought a guy from prison that told you just don’t go there. But unfortunately the way they spoke more so appealed to us. And it wasn’t really like a concrete message of how to change, how bad things really were and that we were important and we could do something better. So, I jump at every opportunity I have. I definitely want to help steer somebody from this lifestyle and preserve them from what I had to go through.
Cy Kellett:
So, do you have a relationship with the Catholic diocese or Catholic parishes here in San Diego or no?
Joe Gilbreath:
We have informal. The Catholic diocese has been very supportive of us. They’ve just helped us with a recent grant. We also have Rise Up industry coffee. That’s what we were beginning when we first were conceiving of this idea, we were thinking of selling Rise Up industry coffee.
Joe Gilbreath:
So, we have our own private labeled bags that are available in a number of stores. And the diocese is a big customer of us on that as well. The other thing is we assign a mentor to every member in the program. And a mentor has a commitment to meet with their member once a week and to be engaged for the 18 months. And most of our mentors are we’ve met through Cursillo, which is a Catholic program. And that’s where we get most of our volunteers.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. So, to what degree is the program explicitly a religious program and to what degree is it not? I suppose.
Joe Gilbreath:
We consider ourselves a faith-based organization. But we don’t necessarily consider ourselves that it’s necessarily a spiritual program. But the reason we wanted to have a spiritual element to our program. Because based on our Kairos experience, what we recognized was most of the individuals that we’ve… when we were researching this and those that we met in prison who had made positive life changes when you ask him what the root because was, typically it had something to do with their faith. And so, we thought that that was an important element.
Joe Gilbreath:
And then, as we were researching this, I went up and met with Father Boyle. I want to learn more about his program. And I specifically asked him if he had a spiritual component to the program. And he said, “No, we don’t. And sometimes our members will come in and say, ‘Hey, they just joined this parish or whatever.'”
Joe Gilbreath:
And he said, “We’ll slap him on the back and say, ‘Congratulations.'” He said, “We don’t have a spiritual program.” He said, “We live the gospel message.” And that really ring a bell for us. And so, that’s what we try to do.
Joe Gilbreath:
We want to live the gospel message. We do have a book club on Friday mornings that we’re reading a book by John Templeton called Discovering the Laws of Life. It’s not necessarily a spiritual book itself, but there’s a lot of spiritual elements to that. And so, we assign a chapter a week and then we sit around at table and talk about what that chapter means to us. And many times our faith background comes out for discussion.
Cy Kellett:
With all the things that the kind of instructions in the works of mercy that Jesus gives us. I think most people know how to feed the hungry and we get an opportunity to do that. And even cloth the naked and people will take their clothes to the parish or the food to the parish.
Cy Kellett:
I don’t think visit the prisoner is one that most people go… most people, you said, even if they really wanted to, even if they said, “Look, this is something I feel called to do. I want to be helpful in this.” They don’t have any clue about how to do that. So, maybe you could say something about how people can do what you’re doing.
Joe Gilbreath:
Well, one thing, if they wanted to be involved with Kairos Prison Ministry that was remarkable. I made my Cursillo weekend back in 2002. One of the individuals that I met through Cursillo introduced me to Kairos. And they said, “Kairos is very similar to Cursillo,” except for it’s in prison. And I was invited to go down to a closing ceremony of a Kairos weekend.
Joe Gilbreath:
And they had an open mic at the end of the weekend where inmates were invited to come up and speak and to hear their stories and how impactful Kairos was to them, drew me into wanting to work Kairos. One of the lessons that most of us Kairos volunteers learned through our experience was sitting and talking with these inmates and hearing their stories. And we’d say, “You know what, if I grew up in that guy’s home in his neighborhood, I’d be his cellmate today.”
Joe Gilbreath:
These guys did not start life on a level playing field. There’s folks out there that are reluctant to hire ex-felons. But if they really got to know them, understood what they went through in their life and how they turned their lives around, there would be a lot more compassion and understanding and wanting to bring these into their company.
Cy Kellett:
So, what about supporting you? Are you seeking volunteers, financial support, people to support you prayerfully? How can people support Rise Up ministries?
Joe Gilbreath:
Well, all of the above. Prayers are obviously always welcome. Donations are welcome. We operate primarily off of donations and grants.
Joe Gilbreath:
Our social enterprise, our machine shop does contract work. And so, we’re beginning to generate revenue from the machine shop. That’s going to help support us financially. We don’t have the need right now to increase our machine shop customers, as soon as we move, which we’re hoping to do within the next year. We’ll want to expand our customer base as well.
Joe Gilbreath:
Volunteers, we could use volunteers as mentors. Again, they would be committing to meeting with their member once a week and committed for 18 months. We have some volunteer opportunities as far as grant writing and instruction like math instructors, or if you’ve got a background in blueprints or machining and wanted to volunteer as a teacher, we could use that as well.
Cy Kellett:
What would you say to somebody… I’m interested in the mentoring thing. You have someone that you have a mentor relationship with?
Mike Lucero:
I do.
Cy Kellett:
So, who’s the person that you think would be good for that?
Mike Lucero:
I think the person that would be good for that is the person who has a heart of compassion, and then feels a need or stirring to do something outside of what they’re doing right now. You know? I know that people get out there and whether it’s through a spiritual experience or just maybe a point in their life where they know they’re a resourceful person, they know they have things to offer, and they know they have time on their hands, that this is something that they could definitely consider. It’s not just something where it’s a momentary thing.
Mike Lucero:
It’s something that you have to cultivate this. It’s a relationship where you could literally not only transform that individual’s life, but by doing so, you can impact their family as well and a generation to come. It’s a very interesting group of people that deal with. But it’s a very broken group of men and women as well, that really want to change their lives. And for somebody to be able to just invest some time and compassion into that whether it’s through lunch or just offer encouraging words, I think that’s definitely something that can be transformative for both people’s lives.
Cy Kellett:
Beautiful, Mike. All right. So, something I was supposed to mention, and I didn’t mention is that Catholic Nights coming up here, July 15th at the Padres. And so, if anybody’s here in the local area and wants to go see the Padres in July 15th, all the proceeds from Catholic Night are going this year to support Rise Up Industries. So, you can go to sdcatholic.com.
Cy Kellett:
That’s the diocese’s website, sdcatholic.com. And then, you just look for Catholic Night at Petco and every ticket UI includes a donation to Rise Up Industries. I want to ask you about the wider thing too, though, because Rise Up Industries, as you were explaining to me before we started this conversation, it’s a local thing here. We local San Diego folks, east county folks, we can support that. But it’s part of a worldwide movement.
Cy Kellett:
And maybe it’s something people want to know about, like, maybe there’s someone like you, who is like, “Well, what’s my next move? Could I get involved in this?” So, tell us about the movement and how people might find out more about it.
Joe Gilbreath:
Well, if they’re interested in Rise Up Industries, we do have a website riseupindustries.org. If they are interested in the Global Homeboy Network, Homeboy Industries also has a website and they’ve got a link there to the Global Homeboy Network. So, if they’re not in San Diego, but they’re interested in this ministry, if you will, they could go to the Global Homeboy Network and find an organization in their community.
Cy Kellett:
I feel like there’s a lot of really helpful stuff for people. Like people maybe didn’t don’t know about Kairos, that they can go get involved in Kairos. You can do prison, visiting prisoners, get involved in prison ministry. You don’t have to be a skilled minister. You don’t have to be somebody with a degree in theology or something. Anybody can do this. Men’s and women prisons both, or?
Joe Gilbreath:
Yes.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah? And then, if you want to get involved in something like Rise Up. If you’re local, you can go to your website or you want to, maybe this is something you want to start in your… I don’t know, in your town and your city, anywhere around the world, you can get help and support and guidance at the worldwide Homeboy Industries.
Joe Gilbreath:
Exactly. Yes.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. Is it hard to start? Like, it seems like a lot of work to get this off the ground.
Joe Gilbreath:
It’s been a journey. I mean like I said, it was… next Thursday, we celebrate our 10th anniversary of the day-
Cy Kellett:
Congratulations.
Joe Gilbreath:
… that Father Boyle said, “Why don’t you start one?” So, it’s taken us a while. And it doesn’t happen overnight. We still face challenges because the cost of operating this program 18 months long, and with the wraparound services, it’s expensive. And a lot of grantors will look at the expense. And then, they say, “Well, how many people are you have in the program?” Well, we don’t have very many in the program. And when you have 18 month program, your turnaround rate’s not very high. So, that’s a challenge that we experience in our grant writing.
Cy Kellett:
I see. Yeah.
Joe Gilbreath:
But as our machine shop increases and more and more of our revenue, our projection is by 2025, over half of our gross revenue will come from our machine shop.
Cy Kellett:
So, Mike, so you work in the machine shop?
Mike Lucero:
Yes.
Cy Kellett:
But you’re getting training. So, you’ll develop skills-
Mike Lucero:
Yes.
Cy Kellett:
… that you could take elsewhere if you want.
Mike Lucero:
Sure.
Cy Kellett:
But is this your job too? Are you getting paid for working in?
Mike Lucero:
Yeah. I actually get. So, this is on-the-job training. I show up at 6:00 in the morning, five minutes early, that’s our rule. And I get off at 2:30 and I have breaks just like an employee. But I’m offered a lot of things there. I work in the machine shop. Obviously, my knowledge has grown so I can do more now. But in the entire week, there’s a lot of things that are offered to me. We have one on one counseling with a psychologist. We have a drug addiction group that we go to Catholic in Recovery. It’s a really cool place.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, yeah. A friend of ours started that.
Mike Lucero:
Scott comes and meets with us every-
Cy Kellett:
He does?
Mike Lucero:
… Wednesday morning, at 6:00 a.m.
Cy Kellett:
Man, I got to give him more credit. I didn’t know he’s such a good person.
Mike Lucero:
That’s a cool group. We also have a relapse prevention that we do on Thursdays with a members meeting that we meet and topic about topics we need to deal with. We have our book club on Fridays. And then, also woven into that is the classroom time that we have where we’re in there studying the basic elementary principles of engineering, mathematics and things of that nature. And altogether it’s a very busy week.
Mike Lucero:
And to think that we get paid to not just learn, but at the same time they’re investing into us and getting to work on our recovery. Because a lot of people come out of addictive lifestyle, but also learn new skills to not just help us in the workplace, but just to help us in life. It’s really a cool opportunity.
Cy Kellett:
But you can see why there’s a cost to it. I mean, that’s a lot that’s being done. And I imagine that some of these folks teaching the math or the engineering are, these are people who have done it in their own life and they have decided they want to give back-
Joe Gilbreath:
Yes.
Cy Kellett:
… to other people. And that’s beautiful. That’s really something. I just feel so privileged. I hope that this is a relationship that will continue because like I said, we’re a talking ministry, that’s all we do.
Cy Kellett:
We talk. And it’s good. I’m not putting us down. But it’s good to be in contact with this is where the gospel’s really meeting the pavement here in what you’re doing. So, God bless you in your work.
Cy Kellett:
And I hope that this relationship will continue. I hope that people who are… we always end this podcast by asking people to support us financially. But I won’t do that today. I’ll say maybe you can support Rise Up Industries financially. Give us the web address again?
Joe Gilbreath:
It’s www.riseupindustries.org.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. Riseupindustries.org. Mike, I feel so privileged that I got to meet you. Thank you very much.
Mike Lucero:
Thank you for having me. This is a program that I believe into because it’s transforming my life. So, guys that want to transform their lives look in our direction as well. And people that want to help you really help impact somebody’s life. We’re very grateful that you guys are here to get the message out. Thank you very much.
Cy Kellett:
I feel good about the 18 months for you, Mike.
Mike Lucero:
It’s so great [inaudible 00:34:50].
Cy Kellett:
You want to come back at 18 months and-
Mike Lucero:
I would love to.
Cy Kellett:
… we’ll do this again?
Mike Lucero:
That’d be great.
Cy Kellett:
I think that would be great for us and I’d really like to have that conversation.
Mike Lucero:
Cool.
Cy Kellett:
Thanks, Mike. And Joe, thank you very, very much. God bless you and your work.
Joe Gilbreath:
Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting us tonight too.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Well, I mean it quite sincerely, I hope this is something that will continue. I hope that we’ll be able to stay connected with you because it means a lot to us and maybe getting the word out, it can be a little bit helpful too. And that’s-
Joe Gilbreath:
Absolutely.
Cy Kellett:
… that’s we do get the word out.
Joe Gilbreath:
Yes.
Mike Lucero:
Awesome.
Cy Kellett:
Thank you both.
Mike Lucero:
Thank you.
Joe Gilbreath:
Thank you.
Cy Kellett:
I hope you enjoyed that conversation. For me, that was a particularly inspiring and enlightening conversation. Somehow, when people are living the gospel and telling you about how they benefit from the gospel, it feels like more of a reminder than new information. Like, “Yes, I know this and why do I forget this?” And it’s so inspiring to know that God is calling people to do work still today in our time, like the work that they do at Rise Up Industries. I want to give a very hearty thank you to Mike and Joseph for visiting with us.
Cy Kellett:
And I said that I would give their website so that you can give to them if you are so inclined. And so, I won’t give our donor website this time. Riseupindustries.org, just go to riseupindustries.org. You can find out about them. And if you choose donate so that you can help out folks who are coming out of prison and maybe keep some folks out of heading towards prison.
Cy Kellett:
Jesus gave us the works of mercy. He intended for us to do them. They are important to our salvation and to the salvation of the world. So, maybe we’ll do some more of these bonus episodes, finding people who are living the works of mercy given to us by Christ in the world. I hope we’ll get the opportunity to do that.
Cy Kellett:
Thanks for joining us for this episode. If you got comments, if you want to reach out to us, you can always send us an email focus@catholic.com is our email address. If you’re watching on YouTube, we’re growing there and we really appreciate your help in growing. It helps when you subscribe and you hit that little bell.
Cy Kellett:
So, you’ll be notified when new episodes come out and also tell your friends that they can find us on YouTube. If you’re listening on podcast, and Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, please, five stars, a few nice words. They do wonders for growing the program. Anyway, that does it for us. I’m Cy Kellett your host. See you next time, God willing, right here, Catholic Answers Focus.