The city of Lexington is accepting applications for government funds to help reduce gun violence among area youth. The Gun Violence Prevention Grant program is supported with $50,000 from the city. One Lexington Director Devine Carama said the effort is not focused on duplication, but on expansion when it comes to existing organizations.
“What we want to do as government is not reinvent what they’re doing, but we want to build the capacity of what they are doing. And part of that definitely is financial resources,” said Carama.
Carama said tackling a major community issue like gun violence without sufficient resources can lead to over-extension and burnout.
Carama noted some participating groups have 10-thousand personal interactions a year.
“So how many people are those ten thousand impacting and so on. How is that one person changing their life around impacting their family or impacting their peer group. And so, it really is immeasurable, right, how do you measure homicides that don’t happen,” said Carama.
Each awarded recipient will receive up to $75 hundred dollars.
The application deadline is 4:00 p.m. on February third. One Lexington was formed to leverage government resources with community partnerships to address gun violence among those 13 to 29.
