Voices in Our Heads
Bob Cabeza is Building the Future in Long Beach
Bob Cabeza has a great story about growing up. I’ve known Bob for nearly ten years and I had no clue about the story.
“I was raised on a ranch in northern California outside of Angel’s Camp, California.” That’s above Stockton and below Yosemite.
The Vice-President for Community Development for the Greater Long Beach YMCA, Bob Cabeza, grew up in a rural environment of mountains and camping.
“My idea of camping was riding a horse out with a tin of tuna and a can of beans and a rifle and a horse.”
The story gets better.
“I’ve eaten rattlesnake. I’ve eaten crawdads. I’ve fished ponds, bass out of ponds. Yeah, that was pretty much my childhood. I lived the Mark Twain childhood.”
Bob Cabeza
That rough and tumble early life would provide an important foundation for the rest of Bob Cabeza’s life.
The Long History of Bob Cabeza
Bob Cabeza has been working for the YMCA for thirty-one years. It’s a career that began in the Central Valley of California, took him to Europe during the tumultuous time of the Berlin Wall falling down (That’s a story worth hearing) to Long Beach.
He was hired by the Long Beach YMCA in 1992 to work with urban teens in employment, after school, and college readiness. That was twenty-five years ago.
“I thought I would stay in Long Beach for a year.”
And it’s been a fruitful twenty-five years for Bob Cabeza and for Long Beach youth.
“I operate the community development branch in Long Beach whose whole sole purpose is to provide the most innovative cutting edge programs for the most disenfranchised low income communities, not only in Long Beach, but nationally.”
That’s a tall challenge but spend any time with Bob Cabeza and you quickly learn it is a challenge that he engages and embraces.
The Greatest Challenge and the Greatest Joy
There’s no more proof of that than in the Youth Institute. A grant proposal was written on a napkin at a fast food restaurant in a meeting with a friend from Apple. It was “…about how we’re going to help urban kids, vulnerable kids, kids without skills or support develop their voice and learn how to tell stories using the new medium which was iMovie.”
Today, the Youth Institute, based in Long Beach, has become a centerpiece of using multi-media technology as both a teaching, self-development, and expression tool. The youth learn everything from character-building to team-building to leadership skills in a supportive environment.
“They develop their voice. Young people need to develop their voice. And when they develop their voice, they have tremendous power. That’s when they start challenging the academic environment. That’s when they start loving to learn. And that’s when they start focusing on future instead of here and now.”
That formula has worked so well that Bob Cabeza and his team have been asked to duplicate it in fourteen cities in the United States. There are programs in Canada and Cambodia. Future programs are planned for South Africa and Columbia.
“To be able to sit a table and be able to help youth, in all cultures and in all walks of life and in multiple areas around the country and the world, develop skills and develop opportunities and gain hope, is probably the most rewarding and most beneficial work I’ve even done. I’m probably the luckiest man in the world.”
Contact Bob Cabeza for more Information
If you would like to find out more about Bob Cabeza, the YMCA and the Youth Institute, you can visit their website at www.lbymcayi.org. You can also email Bob at bob.cabeza@lbymca.org.
