William 'Blinky' Rodriguez

Thank you, Joe.

For you to remember was really humbled me.

You remembered, you mentioned my son and why I was starting that.

And you don't even know what it's grown into since that day that you've seen what was going on.

Well, you know, unfortunately in some communities, drive-bys aren't uncommon.

And so when it becomes a generational curse, you know, and kids are getting killed sometimes randomly, that happened to me.

It came knocking on my door in a valley that's got 2 million people.

It knocked on my door, and I was just, I'm going to put it this way.

I had a calling on my life.

Two, to do something about it because it became a situation where families and community was like, well, yeah, well, that's what happens in our community.

And I was saying, that is not what happens in our community.

This is our community.

And so I began to move.

I began to move, ironically, with some churches that had that kind of ministry in their ministry and peace marches, et cetera.

But my son got shot while he was learning how to drive a stick shift.

Wow.

And it took his life.

And that's not normal, and that should not be common.

So I'm still at it.

Still going.