By KELSEY AINSWORTH
Northeast News
June 27, 2012

Thanks to an $8,000 grant, the Mattie Rhodes center held a youth summit in early June to educate youth about crime and safety in the community. The Greater Kansas City Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) provided the $8,000 grant to make this event possible.

“These grants symbolize our strong belief that Kansas City neighborhoods are vital to the health of our entire region and we are pleased to support these community organizations who help make this possible,” said Julie Porter, Greater Kansas City LISC Executive Director. “In many cases, the programs would not be possible without our funding; and yet, they are the building blocks to revitalizing neighborhoods.”

The youth summit reached out to children ranging from grades sixth through 12th to discuss crime and safety within the community, with a focus on gang violence. Susan Garrett, director of community services at Mattie Rhodes, said the grant allowed the center to get creative with the youth summit. They brought in dynamic professional speakers that could interact with the youth to make the presentations more entertaining.

The summit opened with a speaker and then separated the youth into three different breakout sessions, each with important messages. The three breakout sessions focused on public safety, gang violence, and the connection between a diverse community and violence.

In each breakout session the youth filled out questionnaires about their life and what role crime plays in it. Mattie Rhodes also hired a note taker to record the topics discussed in each breakout session.

The Mattie Rhodes Center is striving to bring awareness of crime to the community, help with violence prevention and inform citizens of safety precautions, especially among the younger generation, Garrett said.

The best way to prevent violence is to distract from the violence and keep students engaged, Garrett said.

“We want these students to believe in their dreams. Nothing is impossible,” Garret said. “How can we help them achieve their dreams and achieve their goals? In essence, that is violence prevention.”

Even though the youth summit is now over, the Mattie Rhodes center is not finished spreading this positive message. They plan on distributing the information obtained from analyzing the questionnaires and notes for the youth summit in mid to late July. Garrett said they are also brainstorming and trying to collect data on how to keep the youth and parents involved.

“These youth are resilient,” said Garrett. “They deal with a lot in their every day life so we want to keep finding positive opportunities to engage them.”