A Whitehorse high school will play host to one of Vancouver’s most notorious gangsters next month.

Joe Calendino, a former Hells Angel and B.C. native, will bring his bestselling book to the North.

Calendino’s To Hell and Back: A Former Hells Angel’s Story of Recovery and Redemption is the product of years of lived experience as a world-travelling biker who once suffered with addiction, homelessness and crippling debt.

Co-authored by his high school counsellor Gary Little, the story details how he was stripped of his membership from the Angels and forced out onto the streets.

There, Calendino became involved in drugs before crossing paths with a high school ally-turned-Vancouver cop.

Now a reformed youth advocate and founder of B.C.-based non-profit Yo Bro Yo Girl (YBYG), Calendino aims to steer youth clear of life on the streets, away from gangs, drugs and crime.

With a focus on those between the ages of 11 and 22, YBYG has chapters in Vancouver, Surrey and Chilliwack.

Calendino spoke to the Star earlier this week ahead of his book signing and talk.

“The journey was always bigger than me, about how I landed on my feet when I should’ve been dead,” he said candidly.

“I was on a prison floor, and within a moment of clarity, I said, ‘I never want to see a kid go through this.’”

Despite using his personal connection to connect with kids – Calendino admits he has an “extraordinary sixth sense when it comes to kids struggling” – he is grateful for those around him for leading him down a better path.

Among them are Brenda Calendino and Kathy Andrus.

In late 2012, Calendino’s advocacy work took him to Yellowknife for a sobriety march.

He credits Andrus, a vice-principal at Porter Creek Secondary School (PCSS), who read his book and reached out, for making his visit this time around possible.

“She said, ‘would you be willing to come up to the Yukon?’ and I said, ‘not in the month of December or January,’” he laughed.

Brenda was also in education, but in Vancouver, and now serves as cofounder of YBYG.

Now spouses, the Calendinos met when Brenda was a co-ordinator for the school district in Chilliwack.

“She developed all the curriculum that goes in to the schools, then educated me on best practices to work with kids,” said Joe, also crediting her for changing the organization’s name to be more inclusive.

“Having Brenda in my life, she was like, ‘you know, the name’s not gonna stay Yo Bro.’ And I’m like, ‘uh, yeah, it is,’” he laughed. “But then she started to put all the evidence down on the table.”

That’s how, among other things, the Know Means No initiative was born.

An in-school, girls-only program, it aims to educate youth about healthy relationships and those that exist in the world, as well as warning signs and factors that may put them at risk.

Workshops focus on violence prevention, self-defence and de-escalation tactics – something Calendino said he saw an immediate demand for in cities all across the country.

Recalling his experience, Calendino said what motivated him even more to give back was the heightened danger youth seem to face today.

“Fighting was a fight. You fought, you got your butt handed to you, you got up, dusted yourself off, had a beer with the guy and that was the end of it,” he said.

“Nowadays, kids get in fights and are coming back with guns,” meaning it is no longer a “big city, big issues” problem. “And, from what I understand, there’s a very similar issue going on up in the Yukon.”

That’s what YBYG aims to help youth avoid, by offering leadership and peer mentorship opportunities both inside and outside the classroom.

Calendino also speaks about the family domain in his book: with a father who struggled with mental health and was eventually incarcerated, he feels he didn’t have support and protective factors as a youth.

He found allies in his mother, siblings, Little and former high-school associate-turned Vancouver cop Kevin Torvik, “an individual who went right, while I went left.”

In a twist of fate, Torvik was a member of the outlaw motorcycle gang unit, who met Calendino after he “hit rock-bottom.”

Torvik eventually connected with Little, who was then the superintendent of Vancouver’s school district.

“It was a pace, not a race,” sighs Calendino, adding there were a lot of naysayers who questioned his efforts of getting clean to be genuine.

Gradually getting in front of schools for presentations, he began to realize that’s where he thrived – and eventually met Brenda.

After recently being “mandated by the mayor to go into elementary schools” thanks in part to her efforts, Calendino adds this was an important move for the initiative.

“Another thing we were able to pull from the stats was that the age category was dropping significantly with kids identifying with drugs and addiction,” so getting in front of younger audiences was crucial.

He suggested that those aged 12 to15 are the most vulnerable to making poor decisions.

“That’s the way the adolescent brain is wired; it’s wired to fight authority,” he reflected.

Even then, Calendino insists that appealing to them as powerful individuals can have extraordinary results.

“All our youth have an innate ability to be resilient and bounce back, be able to face adversity,” he said, reflecting on girls and boys who have became involved and grown with YBYG.

“I always tell kids, ‘you’re in chapter one,’” he laughed.

While it sounds cliché, he addds, he always follows up with “Do you want it to be your last chapter? Because that’s the direction you’re going in.”

And even after youth have gone through the programs, Calendino ensures they are not left to fend for themselves.

Senior members are able to seek employment opportunities through the organization’s Foundations for Leaderships program, and are encouraged to give back and volunteer as a mentor to other youth.

“If that wasn’t enough, we have family nights on Wednesdays. If that wasn’t enough, then they wanted a weekend program,” he sighs, before laughing: “And I have no life.”

Despite nearing his 50s and what seems like exhaustion, Calendino says he remains motivated to continue giving back.

YBYG came out of “demand, a bond, a sense of unity: all the things our kids think they’re attaching to in that lifestyle but identifying with drugs and gangs, they can have that but in a positive light.”

The best part? All services are free of cost, and the organization accepts self-referrals as well as those from police, schools and probationary departments.

And while it initially targeted at-risk youth, it’s grown to include those who join as volunteers and can’t get enough.

“Sometimes the kids just want to be a part of the program, and that’s OK too. So we have a mixed bag, they’re not all at risk.”

Meanwhile, Calendino says that while he’s left a life of recklessness behind but uses elements of that to connect with youth, he does not relive his past.

“I don’t talk about the club, I don’t talk about anybody in the club. I only talk about Joe’s story in the club, that’s it,” he said.

Adding that the book was designed to be “about an individual that made poor choices,” he said he hopes readers are able to eventually see “what it looked like to come out the other side.”

“The best way to put it is I didn’t choose this journey. This journey chose me,” he said, hoping that he can give youth an opportunity to inspire and learn from him.

“You don’t have to stop what you haven’t started,” he added, continuing that helping youth from Vancouver’s ground zero of the opioid epidemic is especially memorable.

The number of success stories he’s seen and relationships he’s developed with youth – some of whom consider Calendino a father – is heartening, he told the Star.

“How can you not love a story like that?” he smiles.

Calendino is scheduled to appear at PCSS at 7 p.m. May 3, but there will first be a dinner fundraiser at 5:30 p.m.

Those interested are also invited to a book-signing at the Coles book store beginning at 4 p.m. May 2.

Proceeds of the dinner fundraiser are to go toward Yo Bro Yo Girl youth programming.