Join Rudy Corpuz, founder of United Playaz, whose advocacy centers on youth — providing in-school and after-school programs, crisis response, job development, and leadership skills to prevent them from entering and re-entering the justice system. They also have a gun buy-back program.   

With Miguel Bustos, cathedral deacon and Manager for Racial Reconciliation and Justice for the Episcopal Church, Corpuz will reflect on how to protect our children from guns. This program is part of Grace Cathedral’s social justice initiative “Beyond Thoughts and Prayers: Responding Faithfully to Gun Violence.”    

Listen

It takes the hood to save the hood | Rudy Corpuz Jr. | TEDxSanQuentin 

About the Speaker

Rudy Corpuz is the founder and executive director of United Playaz, a San Francisco-based violence prevention and youth development organization now in its 29th year. The youngest of nine children born to immigrant parents from the Philippines, his family moved from Boston to Seattle before eventually settling in SoMa in the 1960s. Rudy joined a neighborhood gang at age 12, began selling drugs at 16 and, after dealing with his father’s sudden death in 1987, spent nearly a decade in and out of trouble with the law. His enrollment in Extended Opportunity Program Services, and a job opportunity as a gang prevention counselor led to him founding United Playaz, and becoming a stakeholder and builder of his community. 

About the Moderator 

The Rev. Miguel Bustos is The Episcopal Church’s manager for Racial Reconciliation and Justice. He recently served as chief of global initiatives and senior director of the Center for Social Justice at the Glide Foundation, an arm of Glide Memorial Church. He spent years as a strategist, advisor, and staff leader in the Clinton White House, and with Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and Congresswoman Barbara Lee. He is a cathedral deacon at Grace Cathedral.  Born and raised in San Francisco’s Mission District, Bustos lives there with his life partner, Alex.

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