By Mark Wineka
Salisbury Post
Salisbury Mayor Susan Kluttz said Tuesday she hopes as many as 400 parents and their children will attend the Project Safe Neighborhoods “Family Day,” the first big community event meant as a follow-up to the city’s June 14 gang summit.
The Family Day will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Aug. 18 at the J.F. Hurley Family YMCA on Jake Alexander Boulevard in Salisbury.
The event is open to all of Rowan County, the mayor stressed. It will be targeted toward children in kindergarten through fifth grades.
The day will include free food, free school supplies, live music, interactive puppet shows, McGruff the crime dog, workshops for parents, door prizes for children and adults, information booths and displays.
Programs and information offered will contain anti-gang, anti-violence messages aimed at youth and their parents.
The 45-minute puppet shows will address things such as conflict resolution and will be presented by Win-Win Resolutions Inc. Workshops for parents will arm them with a few strategies on identifying and having their children resist the gang lifestyle.
The music will include Christian-based bands and Christian hip-hop.
Rory Collins of the Salisbury Police Department and Karen South Carpenter of the Youth Services Bureau described some of the components of Family Day for Salisbury City Council on Tuesday.
Funding for the event will come from a Governor’s Crime Commission grant, which also has supported the “Nine-Up” program. Nine-Up identifies rising ninth-graders who are at risk and provides a monthlong program of mentoring and tutoring.
Fifty students were in the program this year.
Kluttz said the core group which has been looking into the gang issue met for three hours Monday to come up with an action agenda based on input gained from the hundreds who participated in the June 14 Gang Summit.
The group decided there should be eight categories or components to the agenda:
– Law enforcement measures to curb gang violence.
– Jobs and job training for youth between 16 and 20.
– Mentoring and tutoring of youth.
– Expanded recreational opportunities.
– The utilization of schools.
– Support for parents.
– Education of the community on identifying the signs of gang activity.
– Encouraging the faith community to be involved.
Kluttz emphasized again that gang activity and youth violence has to be addressed through a grass-roots initiative on many levels. But she said for now the community should leverage its existing resources and not create any new programs.
Officials in other N.C. cities have been impressed with Salisbury’s approach and massive citizen participation on the gang issue to date and have used it as an example, Kluttz said.
Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263, or mwineka@salisburypost.com.