Philosophy (click any image to visit Str8 Up on-line store)

Welcome to Str8 Up, a new student-run business coming at you from Rite of Passage (ROP) in Nevada, a program for 200 adjudicated teen boys from half a dozen states. Str8 Up is largely modeled after Father Greg Boyle's Homeboy Industries in LA. Hearing that gang kids who really wanted to get out of the life had troubles getting jobs and job skills in the inner city projects, Homeboy Industries began getting creative about how to get youth jobs. The goal is to give meaningful employment and business skills to kids who seldom have few vocational opportunities in the 'hood. Most of our bad boys will never work at McDonalds or minimum wage retail stores. The project also draws from the old Boys Town model, started in the 1917 and featured in the classic 1938 Spencer Tracy/Mickey Rooney movie Boys Town, in which the entire town was run by youth with a minimum of interference from grownups.
            Str8 Up is a youth-run business taking art created by the students and turning around and selling products depicting the art on-line. We use Cafe Press.com, a leader in digital print-on-demand technology, for our on-line sales. Str8 Up is available for private design consultation......

Independent Living Skills

            Most Independent Living Skills (ILS) classes take place in a classroom, offering an abstract look at skills youth will need down the road somewhere. ILS students typically practice on fake checkbooks and monthly budgets, practice interviewing with each other, and other unreal approaches to real life. For many kids who failed and bailed on school, one of the System's repeat mistakes is to take kids who don't like school and place them in another (ILS) class. Having a real business gives us a better avenue to teach budgets, checkbooks and so on. Also, treating the project like a job will mean kids don't just join up, but apply and interview. Rewards and consequences will also be job related.

Profit Driven

            Many youth projects are dependent on funding that too often disappears after a few years. Str8 Up is designed to be profit driven, avoiding the need to write grants and be dependent on outside money. This also helps teach the teens to work for what they get, and that effort equals results. Students will also share in the profits, feeding into their desire to be autonomous and earn money legally.

 

 

Cliques

            The project is useful in breaking down the separation between cliques and even gangs. This is because Str8 Up is a diverse project, utilizing a variety of youth in one model. Kids who resonate with computers are necessary for the web and Photoshop work, We need the artists to create the sellable art. Kids with a "salesman" tendency can do some of the promoting. Others will deal with inventory, accounting, and so on. Finally, because we can have an unlimited number of departments within our on-line store, all cliques can be represented. Thus, we can represent both gangsters and red-necks, Juggalos and jocks, skaters and preps.

Gangs

            Str8 Up will not help perpetuate a gang mentality by selling clothes in Red or Blue, the most common of gang colors. Most major manufacturers and sporting organizations, including the NFL & NBA have put their logos on red and blue clothes to increase sales, even if the result is more separation and violence among our teens. Many of the Str8 Up youth are affiliated with gangs, and having opposing members on the project helps create a perfect check & balance system to make sure all of our artwork is appropriate.

 

 

Aftercare

            Str8 Up also has the ability to create an aftercare model, almost nonexistent in youth care. Even after youth leave ROP, they can still be part of the program by creating art at home, selling Str8 Up merchandise, and expanding the business back in the 'hood'.

 

About Bret
            Bret Stephenson, MA, is the founder and manager of the Str8 Up project. Click for more info....