Community members and officials from Danville gathered Monday at Green Street Park to declare the month of June as “Violence Awareness and Prevention Month,” with a goal of no shootings in the city.
Jean Jackson, founder of Mothers Stronger Together, led a chant of “No Shootings, No Homicides” at the gathering.
“This is our community, and we must come together to bring the children together and discuss their issues and try to make ways to handle them,” said Jackson, who has lost a son, grandson, sister and nephew in homicides. “As I stand here today, I stand here with passion for our children. I love our children. I want to do everything that I can to help our children. But it is not an ‘I’ thing. It is a ‘we’ thing, and together we can do this. Pray for us as we go forward.”
The declaration of the month of June as “Violence Awareness and Prevention Month” is a community grassroots effort that is designed to raise public awareness about violence and to appeal to citizens to help to make a difference in their neighborhood.
City Council Larry Campbell and City Manager Ken Larking asked citizens to look for tangible ways they can help to prevent shootings.
“We always see the results of violence,” Campbell said. “We need to take preventative measures in our community.”
Larking added, “We want mothers like Jean Jackson, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and neighbors to all work together to stop violence before it happens,” Larking said. “If you know something is about to go down, do what you can to reduce tensions. We’ve had too many lives destroyed by gun violence already to let there be any more. Everyone has a role to play to put it to a stop.”