Thursday, December 12, 2024
Last Saturday’s Day of Peace in Hempstead Village focused on effective, realistic approaches to youth violence and addiction.
Matthew Harris, program manager for Should Never Use Guns, or SNUG, hosted the event. Under the aegis of the Family & Children’s Association of Nassau County, SNUG partners with residents, businesses and community-based organizations to reduce violence. Its outreach workers are trained to intervene in conflicts and promote alternatives to violence.
“This is where my heart is,” Harris said, referring to Hempstead Village. “The work we do every day is really about seeing these kids, giving them the support that they need.”
Harris organized the Day of Peace in response to three recent homicides in the village. When the SNUG team canvassed the community to determine the impact of the murders, they discovered that few people even knew about them.
“When a body drops,” Harris pointed out, “around half a million taxpayer dollars come out of our pockets” — for EMT and police work, court costs, and therapy for victims and their families. “So when somebody gets shot … it affects the whole community, directly and indirectly.”
“We engage with our participants by meeting with them six times a month,” said Jerry Mollette, Hempstead SNUG supervisor. “We help them find jobs and address their education needs.”
Richard Paul, the lead intervention counselor for the Uniondale-based STRONG Youth, works with SNUG and heads his own violence-prevention program, So Rich in Community. He referred to the devastation that families suffer when a loved one — especially someone young — is victimized by violence or incarcerated for violent crime.
“We feel isolated,” Paul said. “Nobody wants to tell you their son is locked up for murder. Nobody wants to tell you that they never got to meet their father because he was killed.”
Dedicated support is needed for healing.
“Trauma lingers,” said SNUG professional therapist Nicole Allen. “It can create cycles of pain that are hard to break out of. But healing is possible.”
Healing means building extended relationships with the SNUG team or with other organizations such as STRONG — or with someone like Larry Gore, who grew up on Terrace Avenue and has been a Hempstead sports coach for 15 years.
“I’m the founder of the Town Elite, where we empower kids through sports and mentoring,” Gore said. “We just did two safe summers” in Mirschel Park, at the northern end of Terrace Avenue. “For two summers we had no gunshots, no killings on Terrace Avenue, but nobody from the news came and covered that.”
The speakers all made clear that raising area-wide awareness of proven approaches to violence prevention requires persistence and dedication.
Valerie McFadden, a teacher’s aide at Uniondale High School for 24 years, posts memorial collages of murder victims on social media, so their names will not be forgotten. She also responds to calls from tearful relatives to come and support them at the scene of a murder, or at a funeral, or at a hospital.
McFadden, 61, called the audience of teens closer to the platform.
“Everyone that’s standing here that’s 35, 36 or 40 years or younger,” she said. “I am retiring from this work because it’s time for me to retire. It’s time for you to step up and take charge of what’s happening in your community and in your world. ”
Reinforcing McFadden’s words, Harris brought Rosemary “Rozay” Roberts to the low stage, where she and Harris performed an original rap song. The chorus expressed how teens can get drawn into activities that are violent or addictive: “See you always be dealin’ with that pain where we came from/ Cause they be thinkin’ it’s a game when it ain’t one.”
“We are asking for a day of peace, a day at a time,” said Harris as the program closed. “It should never stop.”
