Palacio Podcast
Reverend Leon Wood: Living Life as Minister, Educator, Activist
Reverend Leon Wood is a founder and President of Success in Challenges, a non-profit grass-roots social service agency largely serving the greater Long Beach Community. At various times in his life, he has been and still is a Minister, Educator, and Activist. Reverend Wood has a long list of life experiences that have served as both important lessons and as a guide to how he lives that life.
In a younger day, when he was a “street brother”, as he describes it, and was shot, that street crisis did much to steer him in another direction. It was a direction that took him to Assistant Dean for LA Trade Technical School, Dean of Business and Technology at Long Beach City College, and founding the Long Beach Freedom School in 2007.
In his closing sentence introducing his biography, Reverend Leon Wood writes, ” I am determined to not rest until the African-American community successfully and effectively established itself educationally, socially, politically, and spiritually. I am pledged to serve as long as the Lord will.”
PalacioMagzine.com interviewed Reverend Leon Wood at The North Long Beach Prayer Center while volunteers were preparing for food distribution for the poor. Reverend Wood spoke on everything from his early mentors to the state and role of the church today in the African-American Community.
Reverend Leon Wood Biography
Over the past fifty years, Reverend Wood has served the communities of Southern California as an educator, community activist, and as a pastor. Recently, Reverend Wood fulfilled a lifelong dream of completing a doctoral degree in Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University.
He is a founder and President of Success in Challenges, a non-profit grass-roots social service agency largely serving the greater Long Beach Community. Their mission is to provide community youth and adults with safe, interactive programs that promote good citizenship, character development, creativity and discipline, designed to inspire them to face life’s challenges with enthusiasm and dignity. For more information, visit successinchallenges.com
Reverend Wood served as an Assistant Dean for Long Angeles Trade Technical College and a Dean of Business and Technology at Long Beach City College. He retired in 1995. As a community activist in education, the Reverend served at the University of California, Los Angles as an educational counselor for Vietnam veterans, a program director of Talent Search, and the Director of first Educational Opportunity Center funded by the U.S. Office of Education in California.
After retiring from education, Reverend Wood entered the ministry; first serving the homeless as an inner-city pastor of a rescue mission, Christian Outreach Appeal. He later founded the North Long Beach Community Prayer Center. Through the church, he founded the Long Beach Freedom School in 2007. This summer literacy program serves inner-city youth.
