To help out his family, he quit school in third grade, working different jobs, such as shoe shiner, paper boy and milk man.

To make ends meet, he even started working as a shoe shiner, always dreaming of becoming a professional football player.

All over this city of 145,000, children work - as shoe shiners, cemetery workers, miners and assistants to bus drivers.

Each shoe shiner starts off by fanning open a deck of playing cards and inviting the customer to pick four.

Interested in this second project, she organized a group of delivery boys and shoe shiners and founded a candy distribution system.

He said others worked as barbers, shoe shiners and tattoo artists, although the department does not sanction tattooing.

Ayala helped his father by working in the beet farms surrounding Chino and as a shoe shiner.

"I figured if shoe shiners were in the market, the whole thing was too damned risky," the financier said, "so I pulled out."

There they work largely in the "informal" sector: as bellboys, day workers, shoe shiners, and street venders.

Eagleson worked as a shoe shiner and shoe repair finisher from high school through graduate years.