Marco grew up in Santa Rosa. His family came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was seven. His parents worked hard to make ends meet. Marco was often left unsupervised in the small home his family shared. He started hanging out on the corner with the older kids. He was only 10 at the time, but they were nice to him, giving him new shoes and pocket money to buy candy.

Soon, the change in his demeanor became noticeable. No longer the sweet boy they once knew, his parents couldn’t control his behavior. Then one day, they received a call from Marco’s high school. He had been in a violent brawl which police said had been instigated by members of the Norteno gang.

At 16, his probation officer enrolled him in a gang intervention class run by Sunny Hills’ CEYD program. From the start, Marco presented a real challenge for the group’s counselor, opposing everything he said with “you don’t know what the world is like.” Four weeks into the program, Marco approached his counselor asking if they could meet privately. He had just learned his girlfriend was pregnant, and they were planning to keep the baby. He was ready to change his lifestyle and raise his baby away from the negative influence of his gang ‘family.’ Although he had been challenging, his counselor could see that Marco was serious. He invited him to join an upcoming whitewater rafting trip, and Marco accepted.

Marco had never spent any time outside of the city. So when the group set out on their journey, he found himself in awe of the giant trees, the cascading river, and the vastness of the stars at night. On the last evening, sitting by the campfire, he looked over at his counselor with a grin and said, “I had no idea what the world was like.”

Today, Marco is a peer counselor with CEYD’s gang intervention program, helping other youth to see beyond gang life. He has an after-school job with a landscaping company, and he and his girlfriend are planning to marry next spring after they graduate from high school. His son is almost six months old now, and his grin is the spitting image of Marco’s.