The new Rhambo

At first glance, the images tattooed on Tim Rhambo’s arms look like works of art.

Instead, they are reminders of a dangerous past he now regrets.

On one arm the words “Do or Die Denver Lanes” are etched into his skin, and on his other arm is a picture of a hand holding a gun.

“I’d have them removed,” said Rhambo, 40, “but right now I just don’t have the money. I know there are places that do it for free, but they don’t do a good job and in the end your skin looks like you’ve been burned.”

Another reason to let them stay is that they’re now doing more good than harm: evidence of a street credibility that allows him to reach today’s youth as a volunteer with the boxing program at Villa Parke and keep them from making the same sorrowful choices.

Growing up in the King’s Villages apartments in Northwest Pasadena, Rhambo became attracted to gangbanging and drug dealing — the only two lifestyles that seemed to be bringing anyone living there much success.

“When I went outside that’s what I saw. It’s what I always saw,” he said.

Since leaving gang life, Rhambo has been committed to helping today’s generation avoid drugs and violence by both mentoring young boxers who come into the ring and reaching out to other youth on the streets.

As it goes about the well-intended business of trying to steer youth away from violent lifestyles, local government in most cases lacks the person-to-person relationships that an individual like Rhambo can provide.

Recently the City Council’s Youth and Violence Prevention Ad Hoc Committee was criticized by community leaders, including NAACP Pasadena Branch President Joe Brown, as being too bogged down in procedural details to generate any real, immediate change.

Formed in September after nine gang-related homicides shook the city, the committee was the brainchild of freshman Councilwoman Jacque Robinson, in whose district much of the violence involving youth was spiking.

The body, headed by Mayor Bill Bogaard, is an 11-person board with members from the City Council, the Altadena Town Council, the Pasadena Board of Education and the Pasadena City College Board of Directors.

The committee faced a small setback last week when Supervisor Mike Antonovich denied a request for $20,000 to help pay for consultants to assist the committee, telling the Weekly through a spokesman that the money should instead be spent on programs and services that address the problem directly.

As concerned as he is about youth violence, Rhambo looks at the situation in a similar way. “We need to get in the street where [the youth are] to solve the problem,” he said. “I just come at them real and straight.”

Rhambo isn’t the only one out there making social problems personal. There are a number of people in Pasadena who, without taking a paycheck from any sort of consulting firm or government agency, are setting out on their own to make a difference.

Following are a few others we know.