Downey Tutors Come To You

Downey, a diverse and pleasant city in Los Angeles County, has worked hard to make itself a desirable place to live. Competing with other high-income cities nearby, Downey stands out as a safe and welcoming community thanks to the efforts of GOOD—which stands for Gangs Out Of Downey—a non-profit organization dedicated to communal outreach to prevent children and teens, early on, from joining gangs later in life.

GOOD was first established in 1989, as a response to increasing gang activity within Downey. Local community members and leaders form the membership of GOOD, and work year round to raise money for it to run smoothly and effectively. GOOD covers prevention, education, and intervention as methods to combat gang violence. In doing so, they run programs in local schools, as well as ensure a police officer is assigned to all three public Downey high schools.

GOOD’s current website claims that there are no active gangs in Downey—they may have residents who are part of gangs, but no established gangs are in the city. Maintaining this favorable element of the community comes from local donations and involvement every year, especially with fundraising and local outreach efforts so that every resident benefits from the presence of this non-profit organization working out of Downey for the past twenty-eight years.

GOOD also has a graffiti removal squad, cleaning up the blight caused by graffiti on a quick and professional basis. All citizens need to do is call the Graffiti Hotline set up by GOOD and members go to the site in question to clean it up. This restores dignity and beauty to the public and private structures in Downey, and shows residents that their property will be taken care of if GOOD is notified. As their website states, “The people of Downey never want to be in a position of having to reclaim the streets and parks of our city. G.O.O.D. unifies local government, business, schools, civic organizations, and residents in this effort.” Truly, the values of community and cooperation are essential to the day-to-day successes that GOOD experiences with their non-profit work.

This admirable organization is one of many services that residents of Downey can take advantage of to ensure their streets and children are safe from harmful influences. Grade Potential is another organization that works to ensure student success in an academic sense. Downey Tutors trained to work with local students share the concerns of the volunteers of GOOD, and encourage those with whom they work to stay in school, get good grades, and work hard to turn around academic setbacks. Downey tutors can exercise their good influence over their students, helping build up the community of Downey with high graduation rates and post-educational successes.