>> welcome to "comunidad del valle." i'm damian trujillo. today the godfather is in our studio and a clean slate tattoo removal program. this is your "comunidad del valle." ♪ >> we begin today with the hispanic development corporation and portraits of success program honoring the most talented and giving people in our community. with us today is david and with

us also is lydia lopez. she received -- she went through the whole program. they have a youth program and she was honored there. also she will be with us for a couple of segments here on "comunidad del valle." david, we're back at it again. this is another event where as i mentioned we highlight those who don't want to be highlighted but they deserve to be highlighted. >> absolutely. and this year is actually a real special event. it's our 25th anniversary and we're back honoring those unsung heros and those well deserving people from the community who put in a lot of effort and energy to building their community while having their own accomplishment along the way. >> you're one of those who has worked in this community for such a long time. you don't get the accumulates that you deserve. you don't do it to get the accolades. why do you do this and why is it so important to you? >> my main reason is to give back to the community.

we've been blessed as a family. by giving back we touch the lives of many young people and unsung heros like you're talking about and letting folks know there are wonderful people that deserve a pat on the back for that special day and running the students in the youth leadership conference is a wonderful experience. >> two components. honor the folks in this community and youth leadership conference in the south bay community. lydia, tell us about the youth leadership conference and how you participated and what you got out of it. >> first of all, i was invited by one of my counselors. i didn't know it existed. one of my counselors approached me and asked me if i wanted to attend. and we went to the event and i remember it was about five years ago but i still remember. i had a great counselor who is here with us today.

and we had a few speakers that spoke to us about the future and what we wanted to do. i was young back then. i didn't know what college was or what i wanted to do. they talked to us about finding a path. choosing something that we liked and following it through. and since that conference, i started thinking about college and wanting to attend college. >> it's amazing, david, that you don't know when you're at the youth leadership conference how many students you're going to grab. how many are going to latch onto the mage. lydia is one of those who did. >> right. she's a prime example of exactly some of the types of things we want to accomplish with the conference. as you mention, she had a chance to network and meet firsthand leaders of the community that are mentors for the day and with her follow-up and her ambitio.m she used the networking at her disposal to be successful in her own life. >> there are things you want to get across about the conference

or portrait of success program itself. >> some of those great things we talk about the sponsorships. our title sponsor have been faithful year after year. they attend our event. they take the time to be with us and spend the day with us and come to the conference in the morning and get to interface with some of the students and i say that because we couldn't do this without funding. we get our sponsors. we have many, many wonderful companies and corporations and nonprofits that buy tables at our event that cover the expenses of our students. in these challenging times financially we're faced with that. our goal of 200 plus high school students means we need to get out there and ask folks to step up to the plate and write those checks and make things happen. >> dave castro runs a wonderful youth leadership conference and do a great job of bringing in great speakers. patric

patricia, her mentor last year, heads up our mentors and does a fabulous job. the entire board is a volunteer board and know they are there with their heart and soul for the community and the people shine are key to it the success of this event. >> patricia can stand behind her mentee. this was a nice stepping stone for you. >> i just graduated this past year. patricia gave us her card and i kept in touch with her and she guided me all of the way. i just graduated and obtained a double degree at santa clara and i'm working. hopefully i'll attend law school. >> all of you are responsible for that. congratulations. she'll be back because she's

also a scholarship recipient. any final thoughts, david, while we roll the information? >> nothing. we're just really looking forward to this 25th anniversary. we encourage any school administrator, principals or students interested in attending with classmates or members of your school to give us a call or visit our website to get you guys registered and enjoying some of the success and be on your way to following in lydia's sto footsteps. >> hill bebert and betty are al here. we want to thank them for the work that they do as well. up next on "comunidad del valle," the clean slate tattoo removal program. stay with us.

>> they help erase what may be bad memories. the clean slate tattoo removal

program. r ruban is a graduate of the program. we'll show you a video. it seems awfully painful but is it painful? you are going through this process right here. it's a laser treatment. tell us about this. >> yes. the laser treatment is different than the one shown there. i believe. i haven't seen the laser. >> isn't that laser? >> yeah, same one. >> the one is above my hand and i close my eyes and other one is on my chest and my eyes are still closed. it's a little bit painful. it's getting less painful as treatments go by. >> why did you get them and why did you decide to get rid of them? >> i got my first tattoo above my neckline. it was going to be a collage. it was an expression of my life and it was just in the form of art work on my body.

i decided to get rid of them because they started to become a challenge. i do construction work. i'm an electrician and i also do service work so that means going into buildings, occupied buildings that are occupied by different employees and some of them felt that they kind of get nervous working around me and i want to further my career so as far as that aspect was a factor that contributed to my decision. >> you bring your boy to the studio. how big of a factor was he? >> that was a determining factor in my decision making. being around the neighborhood i get approached by different various gang members and some of them are just want to know who i am and what i'm about and some of them are a little bit more to see if they have a problem with me or not. you know, it's a danger to my

family and my life as well. >> what a master for your program here. >> really done a good job. it's something he wanted to do and again i tell a lot of the youth i can't make you change. you have have to want to change. this is an opportunity for you to take advantage of this free tattoo removal program. phase one is ten-week group meeting and phase two is the actual tattoo removal at valley med. >> you're a former marine. do you get in their face or do they know what they got to do? >> not that way. i do make it a point that this is serious program and it's people that are really for their time and their commitment that they want it. >> you have run this program for a long time. what's that fulfillment program like for you knowing those who graduate are living perhaps better lives because you helped them through it. >> some of the kids took the wrong path and decided to change

and now being an electrician or going to college and graduating or doing something productive in the community giving back. part of the program you have to give back 30 hours of community service. so it makes me feel really good that when i see the kids move on especially when all of the tattoo are removed coming back saying thank you for this opportunity. >> you helped them get these jobs. he's an electrician -- >> some of them already had a contact. they were going through an apresentship program. we remember them out to different companies or help them get a job or make contacts. >> we have a treatment. the one on his forehead, will that come off completely? >> there's different factors on tattoos. there are over 230 types of ink. the body chemistry is different. you know, with consistent treatment he should be fine and it should go away. >> what message would you give those who are thinking of

gettiget ing tatted. >> it affects the workforce if they're visible whether you're in an office or in construction. you don't have to be too clean cut but upper end you deal with professionals of all types, architects and engineers and it makes an appearance on you and the company. the process that i'm going through, my employer knows about it and is really helpful in treatment time i need off for that. most definitely if your age is between 14 and 25, clean slate program is a good program to get into. if you don't have tattoos exposed right now, really think twice about it and do not go forward with anything if you're not sure on it. >> congratulations. you're a good ambassador for this program. thank you for what you're doing for the community for the 30 hours and i'm sure there will

are more after that? >> any final thoughts, juan? >> have to be 14 to 25. going to school and working. we focus on gang related tattoos in exposed areas of the body. we start the next group in the second week of august. >> there's a clean slate tattoo removal program. there is the number to call for more information. thank you so much for the work that you continue doing. good luck. up next on "comunidad del valle," the godfather will be here. with high-speed internet from at&t,

you can connect to the internet at blazing fast speeds. wow, look at that! so you can go online and check out the news, or you can just catch up with old friends -- hey buddy. you can download videos and -- wow, that was fast. you can do it all from the comfort of home. so, as you can see, it's a -- whoa. i'm gonna just go grab a sandwich. [ male announcer ] introducing our fastest internet with speeds up to twenty four megabits per second. switch to high speed internet from at&t and get one-hundred dollars back via promotion card. >> he's known as the godfather back here at channel 11 here on "comunidad del valle." welcome back to your old stomping ground. >> pleasure to be here. >> we're here to talk about a program that you all are familiar with but i want to pick your brain a little bit about how we're doing in the news business right now because the way things are developing, we're not doing things the way you

studied journalism. we're not doing things the way i studied journalism. bloggers have a big influence. the video journalists are now rolling and most every station has them. what are your thoughts on the evolution of your former industry? >> i think the bar has been lowered. i think that when you have a professional journalist and professional cameraman or camerawoman going out to cover a story, it's better if they each focus on what they're doing versus what is happening now which is to send one person to do all duties and that's just not what brought television journalism or the journalism we knew in television, that's not what brought it to the pinnacle that it reached.

so as someone who i think went through the best years of television journalism, the '70s, '80s and '90s. it's painful to watch. i'm able to watch it now because i'm retired. not that i'm home watching news but i am able to watch it if and when i want to. it's bothersome to see what is happening. i understand the reasons it's happening. i understand that it is economic. but when you lower the bar on something that is part of democracy, it's painful. and the essence and the best of journalism is part of democracy and to see the bar lowered for that is painful. >> your comments are eye opening. you carried a press pass that you probably had the authority to still carry one.

i carry a press pass wherever i go. when i talk to kids, i tell them it's like an officer's badge. your duty to the press pass is paramount to everything else when you are out on the street. when you talk about bloggers and some people who are out there representing themselves as media, they don't have a press pass. and so is it a fine line or is the line black and white there that those who don't have that press pass who are bloggers maybe they don't have the scrutiny that we should have as journalists. >> it's not a fine line. it's a very, very defined line between what they do and what journalists do. the press pass is your license to report the truth. to tell the viewer what it is that he or she was not able to be in front of, to be a witness to. we are there, the

representatives, for an event that happens so to lower that expectation, that license, is to lower again part of democracy which is a full -- one of the elements of a full democracy is a complete, complete freedom of the press. and if you start watering it down in different degrees for different reasons, then i think there's omission of what the founding fathers he intended with freedom of the press. >> the question is timely given what's happening in arizona. give us quickly the story of when you decided to go back to help your buddy and the border patrol arrived. >> i was picking pears where great america is today.

and i.n.s. start -- with all due respect to those immigration agents who are reputable, the ones that showed up that did not fit that description. they were harassing those of us picking pears. so because i had this reaction to that, having been an immigrant child, i asked my partner working the same tree if he would -- when they would get to our tree would pretend that he didn't -- that i didn't speak

spanish or rather that i didn't speak english. and so we kind of played with it. the agents asked for our green card and when they came to me, by that point they had harassed enough people so i pretended i didn't speak english and this other guy was trying to do a degree of interpretation for translating for me. and finally when they asked for my green card, i said i had one. it was my american express card. you know since then i have read several incidents of that but i didn't copy from anybody. that was -- i don't know if it was original. it was original for me. and the agent wasn't pleased but i proceeded to tell him why it

wasn't fair, it wasn't american to do what he was doing. >> you don't leave home without it. >> a special scholarship program is right around the corner. after this next break, we'll be back to talk about this fantastic program when we continue. stay with us. ♪ getting your kids to eat more fruits and vegetables can be hard. [ mom #2 ] finding out that one of your kids had type 2 diabetes, that'd be a lot harder.

saying no to my kids when they want afternoon sweets is hard. [ dad ] watching your child struggle with obesity would be a lot harder. [ mom #1 ] realizing it was time for a change... now that wasn't very hard at all. [ female announcer ] be a champion for your children. be a champion for change. for budget saving tips to keep your family healthy, visit us online. >> there it is. video is shaky shot by yours truly but it is what the program is. this is when you are back in mexico city giving scholarships to the kids there before or after the 1985 earthquake. >> initially we gave a total of $1,200 to four students in mexico city. now we average between $40,000

and $50,000 here in santa clara county. it has grown considerably from that first event in mexico. we now have given away more than $500,000 mostly in this county. most of our recipients are in this county. we name our scholarships after people that have made a tremendous difference in our lives. she will be at the dinner there. she's a 16 year old thanking her mom for having her take the path that led her to winning a scholarship. this is obviously when i had black hair. >> lydia, you were a recipient. you are back here on the show. what was that like? what does that mean to you that

the committee honored you on that night? >> it meant that there with a hope. for me it was very difficult to find help and knowing that there was an organization that was helping out and not just the organization itself but it gave me a whole new look about what was out there and there were nice people out there that were willing to help out the community and it just gave me more motivation to continue and looking for financial support to reach my dream of attending santa clara. >> he was my mentor when i first started journalism. i gave him my business card and gave him handshake and i kept the card and never let go of the handshake. we have a couple minutes left. i'll give the rest of the time to you to tell us about the program and take it away. >> i'm fortunate that in because of the support of the community,

the program is on the 7th of next month celebrating 20 years. the 20th year is september 19th because that's the anniversary of the mexico city earthquake but we have to hold it earlier than that because otherwise all of the students are scattered throughout the country, all of the recipients. it is for us to celebrate 20 years of accomplishment by students, by their parents, by their other loved ones and by the community because to have awarded more than $600,000 in a program that started 20 years ago with simply friends who wanted to help is significant. it's a vote of confidence to people like lydia who not only recognize that they believed in themselves but that other people

believed in them. we believe in people like lydia. and we told them that night that we believed in them. we only gave them $2,000. maybe when lydia got it was $1,000 and following year it kicked up to $2,000. >> that was an investment because look at her now. >> right. and the amount of money was relatively small and incidental because what we wanted them to know when they left that room at the hotel was that the adult population in this community said to them individually and collectively, we believe in you. we know you can make a change in this city and this county and this country and if you do that, that means the world is better off because you're here, because you're receiving this award. when you stop to think about it,

the collective contribution by all of these students over the years when you stop to think about the fact that some of them have become teachers, doctors, philosophers, psychiatrists, teachers in every grade level, when you stop to think about what collectively they have done, that means that indeed the program has changed the world because the world is better off because lydia lopez walked across our stage and are continuing to do that. >> we are better because you helped us out. thank you. ome to progressive.com. come on in, and i'll give you a free quote. quote and compare in about 8 minutes. now, that's progressive.

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