Rise Up Rochester Awarded $100,000 Support Grant From Everytown Community Safety Fund
10.4.2024
Investment in Community Violence Intervention Initiatives Will Support Community Healing and Violence Prevention Initiatives in Rochester
ROCHESTER, N.Y. —Today, the Everytown Community Safety Fund (CSF), part of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, has announced $100,000 in funding for the Rise Up Rochester to advance its work of ending gun violence in Rochester and better position the organization to access federal funding. This grant is part of Everytown Community Safety Fund’s more than $2 million investment in 20 gun violence intervention organizations nationwide announced today. The Everytown Community Safety Fund (CSF), a program of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, is the largest national initiative solely dedicated to fueling the life-saving work of community-based violence intervention organizations in cities nationwide.
According to the U.S. Surgeon General, a public health approach to gun related injury and violence prevention requires immediate “investments in community‑based interventions and educational programs.” Rise Up Rochester is a violence prevention organization that empowers communities to establish and maintain a nonviolent culture, and provides support to crime victims and their families. Since 2008, Rise Up Rochester has supported Rochester families that have had their lives turned upside down by homicide by helping them navigate available services. They offer regular support group meetings and hospital-based interventions, also assisting victims with housing or even relocation. Their focus on rapid rehousing to prevent retaliatory violence is an innovative, evidence-informed strategy. Hundreds of classrooms in Rochester have learned how to prevent violence in their neighborhoods and thousands of students have taken a stand against violence through the Rise Up’s Stop the Violence Billboard Contest.
“Rise Up Rochester’s strategic approach to reducing gun violence by ensuring rapid rehousing to prevent retaliatory violence is a creative solution that is already making a difference. Their community-led support group meetings and hospital-based interventions supplement this strategy and are undoubtedly making Rochester safer,” said Michael-Sean Spence, managing director of Community Safety Initiatives at Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and creator of the Everytown Community Safety Fund. “With this grant, the Everytown Community Safety Fund will help Rise Up Rochester scale their wraparound support services for survivors of gun violence and their families, a critical step towards breaking the cycle of gun violence and creating safer communities.”
“Rise Up Rochester is dedicated to fostering and creating a non-violent culture for Rochester through collaborating with local agencies and working directly with victims of gun violence and their families,” said Wanda Ridgeway, executive director of Rise Up Rochester. “This Everytown Community Safety Fund grant is crucial to supporting our expansion of wraparound support services for survivors and their families. Providing safe housing, food, gas, and transportation services are critical for survivors on their healing journey. We deliver these services through two programs – our CERV (Community Engagement to Reduce Victimization) program which provides short term crisis response services, and Our Boys to Men Mentoring Group which provides direct support to young men at risk of shooting and being shot.”
Since 2019, the Everytown Community Safety Fund (CSF) has granted over $13 million in support of 136 community-based violence intervention organizations implementing promising strategies, like street outreach, hospital-based violence interventions and youth development and counseling, in more than 69 American cities. This latest round of support grants, currently CSF’s largest grant offering, will provide grant recipients $100,000, in two disbursements over two years, as well as access to CSF’s quarterly calls, peer convenings, capacity-building trainers, national conferences, as well as support from Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund and its grassroots networks Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, and national partners.
The full list of community-based violence intervention organizations currently supported by the Everytown Community Safety Fund and more information about the fund can be found here.As 18,000 people in the United States die from gun homicides annually, and at least two times more are wounded by nonfatal gun assaults, the violence carries an immense human and economic toll, with survivors facing lifelong physical, emotional, and financial challenges, as well as an increased risk for violent reinjury. Hospital-based violence intervention programs (HVIPs) break this cycle by connecting survivors at their hospital bedsides to violence prevention professionals — staff members with cultural competence, lived experience, and/or expertise in navigating victim and violence prevention services. HVIPs have been seen to be highly effective in preventing re inquiry, with one case study in Baltimore showing participants in HVIPs being six times less likely to be hospitalized for another violent injury two years post–program completion, compared to nonparticipants.
Gun homicide has significantly declined in cities across the nation from a post-pandemic spike — due in part to the scaling and city coordination efforts with community based violence intervention organizations working on the frontlines of the gun violence epidemic in cities across the country. And though local communities have seen a reduction in gun violence, data shows that gun homicide rates in the U.S. are still 26 times higher than in other developed countries. In the United States, every day, more than 120 Americans are killed with guns and more than 200 are shot and wounded.
About the Everytown Community Safety Fund
Everytown Community Safety Fund, a program of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, is the largest national initiative solely dedicated to fueling the life-saving work of community-based violence intervention organizations in cities nationwide. Since 2019, the Everytown Community Safety Fund has granted over $13 million in support of 136 community-based violence intervention organizations implementing promising strategies, like street outreach, hospital-based violence interventions and youth development and counseling, in more than 69 American cities.
About the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund
Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund is part of Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention organization in the country with nearly 10 million supporters. The Everytown Support Fund seeks to improve our understanding of the causes of gun violence and help to reduce it by conducting groundbreaking original research, developing evidence-based policies, communicating this knowledge to the American public, and advancing gun safety and gun violence prevention in communities. Learn more at www.everytownsupportfund.org.