Wear Orange CPTED 2023 Projects—One Year Later
6.7.2024
Each year, Moms Demand Action volunteers support community partners in hosting events and improving their communities on Wear Orange weekend. In 2022 and 2023, the Everytown Community Safety Fund collaborated with Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action to provide Wear Orange Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) grants to 501(c)(3) community-based violence organizations. Each organization received technical support and $10,000 to reduce gun violence through a CPTED project.
These projects are designed to reduce levels of gun violence in highly impacted communities, by altering the built environment, investing in the community, and working with residents to identify meaningful safety improvements. Projects included “clean-and-green” or other place-based initiatives, such as:
- Park and property clean-up,
- Painting murals or signage,
- Planting trees and/or flowers, and
- Purchase and/or storage of site maintenance equipment.
The Everytown Community Safety Fund provides grant funding and technical assistance in partnership with the Local Initiatives Support Corps to support and facilitate these projects. Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action volunteers recommend organizations for funding, support project implementation, and show up on Wear Orange weekend alongside community partners.
Learn more about Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
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Violence can be discouraged by visible signs that a community is cared for and watched over.
The environment in which we grow up, live, work, and grow old can have a major influence on our individual actions, and research increasingly shows this has implications for reducing gun violence. Our surroundings—what researchers often call the “built environment”—changes the way we think, feel, and make decisions.
With this in mind, many urban programs have been carried out to reduce gun violence by reshaping public spaces. This work is often called “crime prevention through environmental design”—sometimes referred to as CPTED—as it involves deliberate efforts to change the built environment to reduce crime and increase community safety. Programs encompass a wide variety of approaches and efforts to rehabilitate areas and make violence less likely to occur. Violence can be discouraged by these visible signs that a community is cared for and watched over.
Keep reading to learn more about the 2023 CPTED projects and to get a sneak peek at our 2024 CPTED grantees.
2023 Wear Orange CPTED Grant Recipients
Heal Charlotte — North Carolina
The Heal Charlotte CPTED project enhanced an existing community garden on the grounds of Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Since the project launched, the garden has been an important outlet for an afterschool program that Heal Charlotte has been implementing at the school. Children involved in this program learn about:
- Village building,
- Empathy,
- Integrity, and
- How to navigate systemic barriers they will likely encounter.
All I Know Foundation — California
The All I Know Foundation used murals to create a safe, inclusive, and welcoming neighborhood in support of the Wear Orange campaign. Local artists, community members, and organizations created murals commemorating gun violence victims in South Los Angeles, California. These art pieces sought to foster healing and remembrance while promoting awareness of gun violence prevention.
During Wear Orange 2023, All I Know Foundation Founder Nicole Williams unveiled and celebrated the mural alongside Moms Demand Action volunteers and community partners.
Carpenter Art Garden — Tennessee
Carpenter Art Garden used grant funds to support its youth art program in the stages of beautifying a derelict lot adjacent to its building. The product is the Tillman Sculpture Park, a collaborative, community-driven public art project. This park provides an oasis of healing and beauty with seating, shade, and a kid-friendly atmosphere. It is located in the Binghampton neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee.
Chicago Cares — Illinois
Chicago Cares and Students Demand Action partnered to restore a basketball court in Chicago, Illinois. This court will be a safe space for young students and local organizations to host basketball games and general events or tournaments to increase community engagement. The project is ongoing, but the progress can already be seen in the photos below.
Advancement Corporation Community Center (AC3) — Michigan
AC3 focused its CPTED project on the exterior side of its building in Lansing, Michigan. AC3 installed exterior lighting around the entrance and outside of the building to increase safety and create a more welcoming environment. On Wear Orange weekend in 2023, the organization celebrated this work by hosting a community event in their building focused on engaging youth in the area in this new safe space.
Speakezie Go Hard — Ohio
Speakezie Go Hard designed its project to create an eco-therapeutic environment for residents. The area will consist of a karesansui garden and a “zen zone.” These spaces will encourage meditative states to release stress and anxiety by drawing and flowing through sand. This project is ongoing.
Clean the Block — Texas
Clean the Block’s Get Up 2 Code (GU2C) initiative helps residents in low-income neighborhoods get their homes up to city codes to avoid costly fines. This work improves both the safety of the homes and the neighborhood’s appearance, which have been shown to reduce crime rates in the area. For this CPTED project, GU2C identified a community in Dallas, Texas, that was most impacted by gun violence, and then hosted a concentrated cleanup in the neighborhood.
Let’s Thrive Baltimore — Maryland
Let’s Thrive Baltimore added an adjacent wooded trail to their Memorial Healing Garden space in Harlem Park. Members of the Baltimore community cleaned the area of trash and debris, then carved the trail. Let’s Thrive Baltimore used grant funds to purchase materials for trail markers, trail surfaces, and plants along the path. Labor for this project came from youth members of the Let’s Thrive Baltimore program. Grant funding was also used to compensate these youth for their efforts.
The Memorial Healing Garden has become a community space for healing and contemplation in nature. Let’s Thrive Baltimore hosted a community celebration for Wear Orange weekend in 2023 to mark the opening of the Memorial Healing Garden.
Melquain Jatelle Anderson Foundation (MJAF) — New York
MJAF worked to create a decompression center where students can sit and relieve stress outdoors during school hours. The space seeks to help students in Brooklyn, New York, with the pressures of young adulthood while navigating the loss of loved ones. MJAF will celebrate project completion in September 2024; an early in-progress photo is shown below.
Home Beneath Our Feet — New York
In response to the 2022 mass shooting at the Buffalo Tops Market, Home Beneath Our Feet made plans to create an all-inclusive sensory garden. The sensory garden is located in East Buffalo and is equipped with wheelchair-accessible beds and paths. It includes plants and flowers to delight all the senses and be a peaceful environment for residents to reflect, renew, and heal. This project also helps prevent criminal activity through natural surveillance (increasing what is visible to passersby), more garbage receptacles, and added lighting.
Sneak Peek: 2024 Wear Orange Grantees
Moms Bonded By Grief — Pennsylvania
Moms Bonded By Grief (MBBG) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is a support group for bereaved mothers that has expanded its mission by providing opportunities for survivors to participate in work focused on deterring community gun violence. This Community Safety Fund Wear Orange CPTED project will help improve their site by obtaining a memorial plaque featuring community partners and creating a field of engraved river rocks honoring hundreds of victims of gun violence in Philadelphia. The new fenced-in area will feature plants and benches for survivors and community visitors to enjoy the beauty of the spaces.
Kevin L. Cooper Foundation — Maryland
The Kevin L. Cooper Foundation (KLCF) Wear Orange CPTED project involves proposed improvements to its Unity Garden in Baltimore, Maryland. KLCF has had stewardship of Unity Garden for 2 years and operates a summer program for local students in the Mt. Olivet community who help maintain the garden. Improvements through this grant include:
- Grading the current garden to expand garden space,
- Building a small greenhouse on-site to help lengthen the planting season and shield crops from insects and drought,
- Installing fencing to improve aesthetics, and
- Delineating boundaries of the garden.
Community Connoisseurs — Washington, D.C.
Through a strategic partnership with InnerCityCollaborative Community Development Corporation (ICCCDC), Community Connoisseurs will engage participants in a comprehensive two-day event. This initiative integrates community clean-up activities with educational field trips and therapeutic discussions, fostering participants’ sense of responsibility, unity, and personal development. Additionally, the project benefits from the credentials of the Ambassadors for Peace Program by the International Association of Human Values (IAHV), which includes SKY Meditation breathing techniques, and the evidence-based Too Good For Drugs & Violence Curriculum.
