Father Gregory Boyle with some of the Los Angeles residents he has helped.
A Jesuit priest, a community organizer, and a James Beard Humanitarian of the Year walk into a Duke lecture hall. It’s not a setup for joke; in fact it’s one person.
On Wednesday, Feb. 3, at 6 pm, Father Gregory Boyle, affectionately known as “Father G,” will speak at Duke on his 30 years of experience successfully combatting gang activity in Los Angeles as a Kenan Practitioner in Residence with Religions and Public Life at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.
Fr. Boyle, a Los Angeles native, provides support and job training to vulnerable populations in the city through Homeboy Industries, based in East Los Angeles. In 1988, Fr. Boyle partnered with local businesses to create “Jobs for a Future,” an outreach effort for local youth seeking a way out of gang life. Four years later, in response to civil unrest in the city, Homeboy Bakery was founded, an entrepreneurial enterprise providing job training and opportunities as a thriving social enterprise.
Today, Homeboy Industries is recognized as the largest and most successful gang intervention and re-entry program in the world, with Fr. Boyle as executive director. Its outreach and business efforts include free social services, continuing education classes, an embroidery business, Homegirl Café & Catering, Homeboy Diner in Los Angeles City Hall, a retail presence at Los Angeles–area farmers’ markets, and more.
It was recently announced that Fr. Boyle will receive the 2016 Humanitarian of the Year Award from the James Beard Foundation to celebrate his work providing skills and job opportunities in the food service industry to tens of thousands of Angelenos.
While on campus, he will engage with a variety of undergraduate and graduate students and campus groups, including a Kenan Do Lunch event and a breakfast on “social enterprise and the power of compassion” with the Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative.
The title of his free public talk on Wednesday is “Be Fearless for Me: Courage and the Gospel of the Marginalized,” which will begin at 6 pm in Gross Hall 107 (West Campus).
He will also participate in a panel discussion on Thursday, Feb. 4, at the Criminal Justice Resource Center downtown, organized by Immaculate Conception Catholic Church (email drew.doll@durhamcosa.org for more information).
The Kenan Institute for Ethics’ Practitioner in Residence program provides an opportunity for professionals in many fields to engage with diverse members of the Duke community. It also provides students with examples of different, and sometimes previously unimaginable, career pathways.
Visit dukeethics.org for more information.