PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Officials with the City of Philadelphia are giving away another round of anti-violence grants up to $50,000 each to community based organizations working to prevent gun violence this fall.
Community stakeholders say the third-year program is a good start to deter the historic surge in gun violence.
Tyrique Glasgow leads the Young Chances Foundation in Southwest Philadelphia. That neighborhood has been heavily impacted by gun violence in the last year, but for years he’s been collaborating with other organizations in the community to change that.
“Initially, it gave us the financial support that we wanted to help with our summer camp, opening up our community engagement center. It gave us an opportunity to get some supplies,” said Glasgow, who received the grant a couple of summers ago.
He hopes the city investment will go further than the checks worth $1,500 to $50,000.
“(There) needs to be more structure around where the finances are going out," Glasgow added.
"A lot of groups that get the money, including (ours), don’t have the organizational capacity to keep a lot of things afloat. So the money gives us a start, but it really doesn’t get the stability that we need to strive for day to day.”
Kevin Upshur leads an afterschool program in the Strawberry Mansion section of the city. He’s also worked for the Juvenile Justice Center for more than 20 years.
“I think it’s a great idea to give out money for organizations to work on the violence and all the problems that we have in our community. But we need to work together collectively,” Upshur said.
He also iterated that he hopes there could be more collaborative efforts when it comes to investing in youth.
"Instead of sometimes just giving it out to all these individual groups who run with the money and go to the neighborhood, and sometimes we never know what they did, we need to have more of an agenda. We need to have an agenda that everybody understands and believes in and will work on the same agenda, whether we have a grant or not,” he said.
"We need to have a network and have places in the community that kids can come to, because when they have problems, they may run to you. I've had kids run up to me and say, 'Man, I got a problem. They're shooting at me.' I'm in the neighborhood, so I was able to hear that. We need places where they can see us. We need to be on the front lines and we need to have places like this throughout the city."
Glasgow agreed that the solution should be treated holistically.
“With these grants, we just want them to understand that it’s really not about the money. It’s about the consistency also of providing this small portion of what we want to change our community with," he said.
The Young Chances Foundation partners with the Philadelphia Police Department 17th District and other organizations like Brilliant Minds Child Learning Academy year-round to invest in youth upbringing and provide a safe space for youth to retreat.
“The violence is happening all day now,” said Taneisha McKendrick of Brilliant Minds. She says their role is essential through summer days and beyond.
“It’s not like a set time is during the daytime. So if we can provide a safe, structured place for the children to come in the daytime, or for 8-10 hours a day, the funding will help us do that. And also give the kids some experiences that they may not experience on a regular basis.”
Applications for the Targeted Community Investment Grants are open now until July 23rd.
This is the fourth round of grants the city has awarded to the cause. Officials say the program has funded more than 125 projects with $2.1 million over the past two years.
The most recent completed round of projects gave high marks on levels of satisfaction and sense of safety from participants and grantees.
“The city alone cannot solve the gun violence epidemic. We rely on community partners to provide anti-violence programming on the ground, in our neighborhoods. These grants aim to support these programs and ultimately save lives," said Mayor Jim Kenney in a news release.
Information sessions for the TGIC grants are being held in June and July.
More information can be found here.
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