Councilmember White, DC community leaders join in call for ’40 days of Increased Peace’

WASHINGTON (7News) — One by one leaders in the DC community and the heads of service organizations stood up in the Temple of Praise church in Southeast and announced the services they provide to the people of the city.

They were gathered there by DC Councilmember Trayon White for an initiative he’s calling “40 days of Increased Peace.”

“I believe over-resourced communities are less violent and we have the gifts, talents, and skills in our community to address all the issues in our community,” White said.

This pooling of resources is an effort to get out in front of the grim headlines, the crime, and the tragedies that tend to rise in the summer months.

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It is a violent trend Asiyah Timimi knows all too well.

“All three of my sons are victims of gun violence,” she said. “My youngest son is paralyzed from the waist down. It’s personal.”

“It’s a spirit of fear in the community when people don’t feel like they can go to the grocery store, can’t go to school, and it’s getting worse,” said Councilmember White.

“We ran the narrative too long that crime is down in the city. Yes, crime is down… down the street.”

The hope is to transform the hotspots on the city’s crime map by offering a steady course of positive activities and assistance.

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The offerings will be pinpointed in hotspots and will also provide families with wraparound services for everything from housing to trauma-informed care.

“We want to get some of our young people internships and summer jobs,” added White.

Next, White’s office said it will create an app that will send push notifications about offerings.

The current network of 250 people and organizations will also be able plug in upcoming events.

That way people like Tamimi, who also teaches a life skills course through her organization “ROCK Now,” can coordinate and fight back against violent crime this summer.

During the meeting she said she just learned that one of the students in her course had been shot.

“I don’t want to see another mother get the calls that I got, or that any mother received, that their child was shot or their loved one was shot,” she said.

“We have to keep this momentum going because it’s going to be a long summer, because it’s been a long winter,” White told the crowd.