SAN BERNARDINO >> For families living in neighborhoods beset with crime and violence, a peace festival at Jefferson Hunt Elementary School on Sunday was a safe place to have fun and connect with resources that provide peace and a positive direction for young people.
The event was held as San Bernardino grapples with a spike in street violence that has increased the number of homicides in the city this year to 29. Last year, police investigated 44 homicides, including the 14 people killed in the Dec. 2 terror attack.
On Sunday, an estimated 400 people gathered on the campus of Jefferson Hunt Elementary School, 1342 Pumalo Street, where San Bernardino-based nonprofit organizations, including CHORDS (Creating Hopeful Opportunities and Resiliency by Developing Skills) enrichment youth program, H.O.P.E. (Hope, Opportunity, Purpose and Entrepreneurship) Culture from Victory Outreach Church, and React Agape, put on the festival in conjunction with the San Bernardino City Unified School District.
“It gets everybody together to have a good time and not worry about what’s going on in the streets,” said Cynthia Jones, a San Bernardino resident and a mother of four young children. “It helps them get out of the house. I don’t really let them get outside because of the violence.”
The event featured free music, dance performances, speakers and non-profit members to meet and talk to about resources.
Josie Blanco, 46, is a parent of three girls and lives near the school and says it’s not safe for her kids to walk home from school.
“It shows people they’re not going to be afraid by having it right here in the middle of it and you want to reach out to all the neighbors around here and they’ll see that people can get along and people can put their kids inside the programs,” Blanco said.
San Bernardino resident Andrew Alkana, 31, brought free Nike and Vans shoes for people at the event from his store, the Good Companie Sneaker Boutique, at 289 E. Highland Ave., which received donations of free shoes for the community.
“You see a lot of kids getting involved in the wrong thing and today we’re bringing peace, we’re bringing love, we’re letting people know we’re here to put an end to the violence and put and end to everything bad in the city,” Alkana said.
San Bernardino-resident Edwin Johnson, 33, CEO and founder of CHORDS enrichment youth program, helped organize the event in an effort to provide hope to young people and their families. Johnson said he hopes attendees connect with the services he and other at-risk non profits provide, which involve education assistance, mentoring and life skill training.
“It’s bigger than just having an after-school program,” Johnson said. “We’re developing a relationship with the kids, so the kids trust us. Some of the kids go home with no lights and nothing to eat.”
Hope was the key idea behind the event, he said.
“What we’re trying to do today is bring some spiritual hope and some resources to be able to let them know there are people that really care about what’s going on and we see the problems, so we’re trying to address the problems in the community as a nonprofit. We brought all our resources together to make this happen,” Johnson said.