New county program puts violence prevention in hands of trained community members wlos.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wlos.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Six nonprofits serving western North Carolina, including The Family Place of Transylvania County, will receive $1,078,950 over three years from the Melvin R. Lane Fund of The Community Foundation of
is a “black-person thing.”
Can rising gun violence in Asheville be stopped in its tracks by roughly $200,000 of funding supporting a year of on-the-ground programming? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean community organizations don’t plan to try.
Over the last year, the urgent need to address the interrelated causes and impacts of gun violence, systemic racism and poverty grew even more pressing. In 2020, the Asheville Police Department reported a five-year high for calls related to gun discharges and shootings, the vast majority of which involved Black men. Community members grew tired of witnessing the disproportionate impact of gun violence on their friends and neighbors, explains Tiffany Iheanacho, Buncombe County’s justice services director, prompting county leaders to look for new solutions.