The Rev. Vanessa Ward, president of Omega CDC, said it’s time to take a stand against violence because children matter and need the community’s support.
“I hope you feel, children, this is dedicated to you,” she said. “I hope you know that you are not alone.”
“We are not going to tolerate our children being in a state of trauma and fear,” she said. “They should not even have that language in their vocabulary.”
Community members young and old on Thursday marched from Grace United Church in northwest Dayton down to Liberation Park as part of the first-ever Hope Zone Youth for Peace Gathering.
The peace march and rally was a call to action to end gun violence and create a safer community and included prayers and a candlelight vigil for people impacted by violence.
Several young people spoke at the rally, including Meriyah Lawrence, who read a poem she wrote called “A New Young Star in the Night.”
Lawrence, 15, a student at Thurgood Marshall STEM High School, said she recently lost a friend in Indiana to gun violence.
Her poem reads, “In a blink of an eye, a life can be torn / A future that’s shattered, a dream left forlorn.”
The poem ends with the words, “May the echoes of loss lead to the world reborn / With the hope of tomorrow shines bright and adorns.”
Lawrence said her friend’s death was very hard to take. She said community events like the peace march and rally are needed to spread awareness of the hurtful damage that gun violence can cause, especially to young people.
A’Mariyana Bennett, 14, a sophomore at Thurgood Marshall high school, gave a speech at the rally in which she said gun violence has changed the way she views the world.
“Simple things like going to school, walking to the McDonalds right down the street from my school or even attending some public events now come with a cloud of anxiety,” she said. “Gun violence affects our mental health and sense of security — families are left broken, friends are left grieving.”
Bennett said the more that people speak out against gun violence the better.
She also said she was angry and upset because a couple of years ago school officials did not take a threat of violence she brought to their attention seriously right away. She said she and young people deserve to feel safe.
Dayton Police Department data show that this has been a rough year for Dayton’s youth.
So far this year, there have been eight juvenile victims of murder and nonnegligent homicides in Dayton, which is four times as many as during the same periods in 2023 and 2022, says police data.
About 75 juveniles have been victims of aggravated assault so far this year, compared to 48 in 2023 and 40 in 2022.
In the first half of the year, more than one-third of victims of “unjustified” homicides were under the age of 18. Between 2018 and 2023, 13% of homicide victims were minors.
Some of the violence has shocked and outraged the community, like the death of 12-year-old Isabellas Amor-Carlos. The seventh-grade student was shot and killed last month as she was sleeping in her bed in her northwest Dayton home. Two men were arrested who police say shot up three homes over a social media post.
Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims Jr. at Thursday’s rally promised that the city is going to invest a substantial amount of money in coming years to try to keep its youth safe.
The city commission this week had the first reading of a revised appropriations ordinance that includes $296,000 to fund a youth violence disruption program.
Rachel Ward, vice president of Omega CDC, said gun violence has devastated victims and their friends and families and claimed the lives of far too many young people.
“This is a demonstration and an opportunity for us to stand together to say we are doing something about it,” she said. Omega CDC helped organize the march and rally.
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