Happy tears: Young Oakland man is surprised with a work van and tools for his new business

OAKLAND, Calif. - A 25-year-old Oakland man was overcome with tears of gratitude and joy last month when he was surprised with a gift of a lifetime: a fully equipped work van and a set of professional plumbing tools to help him with his burgeoning plumbing business.  

Happy tears

It couldn't have come at a better time. 

What they're saying:

"I was overjoyed with happiness," Dana Gaines told KTVU. "To be honest, with my life, things have been going a little hard and I haven't really remembered a time where I cried happily like that in a long time, so just to be able to cry happily. That was a blessing within itself."

What we know:

On July 25, Gaines was among the young men being honored at the annual luncheon put on by Oakland-based non-profit the OK Program, a mentoring and leadership development initiative that seeks to help young Black males.  

Nationally, the organization is holding its 35th anniversary this month.  

Locally, since 2013, the OK Program of Oakland has been on a mission to support Black boys in the community by "providing leadership development, academic support, life skills, mentoring, workforce readiness, and positive relationships with caring Black male role models," according to the program’s executive director, Robert L. Smith, who's also a sergeant with the Oakland Police Department.

Smith noted that the volunteer program takes a unique and very deliberate approach in reaching young people as it brings together local police officers, Oakland's schools, and its faith community.

"We are the ONLY program in the nation with full-time Black police officers working directly with Black men to positively impact the lives of Black boys," Smith shared with KTVU in an email correspondence. "To date, we have organized, trained and certified more than 900 Black male volunteers to help mentor Black boys." 

The backstory:

For Gaines, he said he joined the OK Program when he was in 10th grade at Castlemont High School in East Oakland during a tumultuous time in his life. That's when he first met Smith. 

"He came up to the school, and he pitched the program to us, and I was one of the kids to join into it," Gaines told KTVU.

He said that among the many things that he benefited from the program was what the volunteers symbolized as a hope and a light for his future self.

"To be able to see older successful black men that's doing something positive with their life and with their community, I think that was the biggest message right there," he said. 

Gaines said it provided a blueprint for what he wanted to be when he grew up.  

"I want to be a successful Black man that's out here doing the right thing, the positive thing. I want to be looked at as somebody that's a light for the community, not a negative for the community," he said. "The biggest thing about the OK Program is just seeing successful, older black men doing what they're supposed to do in this world and for their community."

Facing tough times 

Dig deeper:

That decision to be a part of the OK Program helped Gaines navigate through some of his toughest periods.

At age 17, at the start of his senior year at Castlemont, there was a defining moment that could have changed his trajectory.

"I had an unfortunate situation happened to me that altered my life," he explained.

Gaines, who found his happy place in any sports he could get involved in, from basketball to football, to track and baseball, said he was at a party when shots rang out, and he suffered a gunshot wound. 

He was injured seriously enough to affect his ability to play sports. He said he was crushed.

"I was really focused on playing sports and things like that. So, for that to happen, and I can't play sports," he shared, "I was really lost on what it is I need to do and what I want to be in this world."

Looking back, that turmoil and confusion felt like the intersection of a crossroads.

"I didn't know if I wanted to continue to do good or if I wanted to just go straight forward to the streets and stuff like that," he shared. "Just bouncing back from that and figuring out things and not getting caught up in what happened to me and wanting to do something about it."

The shooting happened in September, around the start of the school year. It wasn’t until January that he returned to school. 

"I was heading down a path of real destruction, but I'm glad I was able to catch myself and have people around me that depended on me to make sure that I'm doing the right thing," Gaines explained. "At the end of the day, I was able to bring myself back together to be able to even graduate high school," he said. 

It’s young people like Gaines that the OK Program hopes to reach, hopes to stand by, and hopes to guide in the trajectory of their future. 

"He attended Castlemont High School and faced many of the same challenges that confront youth growing up in neighborhoods impacted by violence, poverty, and limited opportunities. Yet through it all, he remained connected to the OK Program," Smith shared with KTVU. 

Power of prevention

Big picture view:

At the crux of the program is the belief that making investments in kids, early on in young people's lives, pays dividends for the community as a whole. 

"Prevention is far more powerful than intervention, and investing in young people before they become statistics changes not only individual lives but entire communities," Smith explained.

Investing in the community

Smith said when people ask him why the program makes these investments in its young community members like Gaines, the numbers speak for themselves.

By the numbers:

"California spends approximately $133,000 each year to incarcerate one adult and roughly $300,000 annually to incarcerate one juvenile," Smith explained. "By comparison, investing approximately $20,000 to help launch a young man's business is not only life-changing for him, but it is also a far better investment for our communities." 

Beyond financial investments, it's the time program volunteers give, that many would argue is even more valuable.     

Smith said the program's officers seek to build relationships from within the community, reaching kids inside schools as well as making home visits. 

In addition to the mentoring work, they help mediate conflicts, connect families with resources, and work alongside community volunteers "to help young men reach their full potential," the program's executive director said.  

Transition to adulthood

Helping men reach that full potential means that the support doesn’t stop once the teens graduate from high school.

The program continues to mentor its young members through the transition to adulthood, offering networking opportunities and career support including professional and workforce development, financial literacy, and ongoing leadership opportunities.

Smith said that effort is part of the recently launched OK Program N.E.X.T. (network, empower, eXcel, thrive), targeting men ages 18 to 26.

"Dana represents exactly what that long-term investment looks like. We didn't simply mentor him through middle school and high school. We continued supporting him as he built a career, developed a trade, and pursued entrepreneurship," Smith said. 

For Gaines, he said that while the OK Program provided him with the support he needed during his younger years, he’s incredibly grateful for the mentors and leadership being there for him during this critical juncture in his young adult life, when he again found himself in a state of turmoil, feeling lost and overwhelmed. 

"After high school, I was just trying to figure out some things and figure out what I wanted to do. I was kind of lost in the sauce," Gaines explained. "I didn't want to be a statistic to my environment, especially how easy it is to be a statistic in my environment… It was a hard process because starting from the bottom, no sense of direction. I didn't know where to go."

Coming full circle

Beyond the support Gaines has received as a young adult and new entrepreneur, he's also celebrating a renewed feeling of purpose he’s gaining now as a mentor, as it has come full circle for him. 

He said earlier this year, Sgt. Smith reached out to him offering him the opportunity to become a mentor.

"I really felt my purpose," he said, "to give back to the boys that were in my shoes when I was growing up, gave me my purpose to fulfill what I need to do and make sure that I'm giving back to the ones like me that may not have a sense direction. But they could look at me and see that this is something that they could do," Gaines shared.

'Try something new'

He noted that he stresses to young people that it doesn't have to be plumbing, that there are countless opportunities if you keep your mind open. 

"There's so many trades out there that you could do," he said. 

For him, he said he never thought his professional life would lead him to where he is now. "I always knew that I wanted to work with my hands, but no way in the world did I think I was going to be a plumber," he shared. 

Out of that lesson, he has this message to young people: "A lot of times as youth, we don't give ourselves a chance to try things that we may be interested in because that might not be cool or the trend at the moment," he said. "Just give yourself a chance to try something new that you may not know that you like, but it turns out that you'll really love it." 

Taking hold of opportunities 

And when reflecting on how he got here as a young business owner, with the support of his mentors and his community at his back, he spoke about shooting your shot whenever given a chance, especially he said, in an environment when opportunities seem few and far between. 

"I love Oakland, and I love being from Oakland, but there's just a lot of things that could haunt you, and there's a lot of bad opportunities that's so easy to get yourself into," Gaines reflected. "So when the good opportunities come around, it's only for so much of a window, and you got to be able to take that opportunity and run full force with it, because you only get it for so long before it's gone."

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Those opportunities came in different forms for the young man, and through the OK Program, they were presented at different points in his life.

"It was great to have them as a kid, but now to have them behind my back as a full grown man, because, like I was saying, it's been pretty hard," he said. "So now to finally have a sense of somebody to put a hand on my shoulder and say, 'Hey, I got your back, man. I'm here for you now. I see that you did it all by yourself for this long, but we're here again. We're here for you now.' I think that's my biggest thing with the OK Program, especially now as me being a man."

Complete surprise

Gaines shared how the OK Program recently reached out to him to see if there were supplies he needed to help him with his business.  

"I said a couple small things, but nothing of this caliber that I would have expected for this to happen. Then, they unveiled it to me. They showed me my tools and stuff and I was like, ‘Wow, I really appreciate that.’"

The tools themselves blew him away but when they unveiled the new work van, he lost it and the tears began to flow.

"That's when I started to cry because, that stuff that doesn't happen to people in real life. That's stuff you see on social media on TV… So, for me to be one of those people to receive that, that was a blessing."

The OK Program said the gifts that they offered to Gaines were to help him in his continued accomplishments. 

"We wanted to remove one of the biggest barriers facing aspiring entrepreneurs: the cost of getting started," Smith explained.  

For his community 

Gaines said that these gifts serve as extra fuel to work hard and make his business a success, sharing that he doesn't want to let his community down.  

"That really gave me a sense of urgency to know that I need to make sure that I'm doing my plumbing, taking my plumbing business serious as I needed to, because now I know that there's people that's watching me and looking at me to do good out here," he said, "They're keeping me accountable."

He said he also wants to make sure that his success is one that he shares with the community that lifted him up, through not only becoming an OK Program mentor himself, but by taking care of the people around him and providing them with opportunities.

"I’ve got friends out there that have been seeing me doing my plumbing thing for the last few years, and they've been picking my brain about it," he said. "But ever since they’ve seen my business getting more serious and more serious, they've been ready to come learn and come get some work with me." 

Becoming a light

Similar to how the OK Program has invested in countless young Black males like him, Gaines said he wants to be a signal of hope, to be a light for younger generations.

"That's my biggest goal right there, to make sure kids could see that they could do it too," the business owner said, "They could do it too, as long as they give themselves a chance to try."

It's young people like Gaines that bring out the volunteers of the OK Program year after year, as they pass on the support they've received in their own lives to those who come up after them. 

"We walked alongside him," Smith said, "while exposing him to leadership opportunities, positive role models, career exploration, and a vision for what was possible."

That moment when the program surprised the young entrepreneur with valuable material support for his new business, the executive director said it symbolized the perseverance of its volunteers. It was also a celebration of their belief in a hard-working young man who didn't squander away opportunities.  

"For us, this wasn't about giving away a van," Smith said. "It was about demonstrating what is possible when a community refuses to give up on a Black boy."