The children saw all of this, and unfortunately, those will always be their memories.  They’ll never forget the sobbing over an aunt shot on the street, the fear of the police who lined the big boys up and took them to jail.  This was what their summers had looked like for so long.  As a mom and a human being, I could not go back to my home unbothered.  These were my memories now, too.  I didn’t want them, and I didn’t want the children to have them.  So we made brand-new ones. 

After just three summers on the block, violent crime and gun-related incidents in that census tract have declined dramatically.  And this has had a ripple effect as far as a mile out.  The neighborhood elementary school attended by a majority of our children has also seen improvements in student performance.  All of this has happened with no real resources, new jobs or governmental assistance. 

The most frequently asked question we get is: How did you do it?  It’s simple.  We cared.  We put on hot-pink T-shirts, got our lawn chairs and a couple of packs of hot dogs, and went to the corner and cooked some dinner.  We showed up and established a presence in the neighborhood.  We’re also creating small community centers in vacant lots around the city, where kids can play, study and get a hot meal. 

We also listened to the people there.  They told us how to stop gun violence in their neighborhood and pretty much all the other ones just like it.  They told us they needed resources, jobs and skills training.  They told us they needed schools that could prepare their children to compete in a world that will soon be run by computers.  They need a share of that $95 million planned for a new police and firefighter training center, because now the community polices itself. 

They told us that it was great that their children were learning their rights in school but that they wanted more qualified teachers who could teach them to read and write.  And with a chunk of that $95 million, we could afford it.  Sure, we still have gang violence.  The cure for that is bringing jobs and resources to impoverished neighborhoods.  We know that. 

I’m not going to lie and say that there is just one solution that will cut down on gang violence.  We did it, though.  We showed up and we cared.  It is really that simple.  I have serious doubts, however, that the man who thought repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act would be easy will ever be able to end the scourge of gun violence.