It was after some Bloods slammed a baseball into David Bussey's face that Bussey decided he'd had enough of this world.

He wasn't going anywhere. Not as a Crip, not as an 18-year-old facing robbery charges, not as a young man who needed gang security to let him know he was tough and that he belonged. He wanted out.

His mother went to see Les Franklin, who has devoted his life to helping suicidal youths after his 16-year-old son, Shaka, shot himself in the head. Bussey said Franklin saved his life.

"He took me under his wing," said Bussey, now 20. "The more time I spent with him, the more I came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth it. It wouldn't have happened without Les."

Bussey said he rarely talks to his own father, and no one told him the things Franklin did.

"He told me to dig deep inside and do the best I can," he said.

So he stopped the drugs, bailed out of the Crips and cut a deal with the courts to straighten up, get a full-time job and go back to school.

The Crips weren't too understanding. "Guys were telling me '187' which means they were going to kill me," he said. "They were calling my pager, leaving me that code." But with Franklin's encouragement, he stuck to his plan.

"My message is, if you are in a gang, for whatever reason, get out," he said. "Open your eyes and ask where you are going to be three or four years from now. I was lucky. I wasn't shot. I was lucky."

The Shaka Franklin Foundation for Youth helps at-risk young people find their way out of trouble.

The foundation, which is participating in the Rocky Mountain News Joy of Giving program, needs contributions. It also needs volunteers willing to spend time with at-risk youths or their parents. Some volunteers play basketball with the teens during their lunch hours. Some teach reading.