http://dwb.adn.com/news/alaska/anchorage/story/9507958p-9418671c.html

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/151156.html

Mao Tosi, a native of American Samoa who came to Anchorage as a teenager in 1989 and became a star athlete. He went to college on an athletic scholarship and played briefly in the NFL.

He came back to Alaska with his wife and growing family. So his wife could stay at home with the kids, he took a second job as a security guard at West High.

That put Tosi, 30, near ground zero for wannabe gangstas. He saw kids with too much time and nothing to fill it, so he started the Pride Club.

"So many kids have died. It breaks my heart," he said back in those early days. "I have to find something more interesting to them than being on the streets or in a gang."

Tosi initially reached out to Polynesians, but the club attracted kids of all cultures.

"We're diverse," 17-year-old Jennifer Spence said as she looked around at a recent meeting and ticked off what she saw: "Polynesian, Asian, black, Hispanic." There are whites and Natives, too.

When word of Tosi's club spread beyond the West High hallways, things took off. The city was looking for solutions to a gang problem, and Tosi knew how to reach at-risk youths.

Communities in Schools provided $60,000, enough for Tosi to quit his security job. The Anchorage School District ($60,000), Cook Inlet Regional Inc. ($10,000) and Taco Bell ($10,000) kicked in too.