LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — After two acts of violence near Tates Creek schools this month, including a deadly shooting, community activists quickly mobilized to respond. ONE Lexington launched the "Safe Passage for Centre Parkway Action Plan," calling for everyone to work together to make Centre Parkway safer.
Part of that effort reached into a Lexington classroom, where an eighth-grader and his civics teacher are doing their part to address gun violence.
In a folder filled with class notes, 14-year-old Kamari Goree shared with LEX 18 what he's learned this semester — gun violence is hitting too close to home.
"It just keeps rising and rising, and I feel like the community isn't trying to stop it as well as they should be," Goree said.
It's a shock for the eighth-grader, who's been studying community issues in his civics class at Crawford Middle School Leadership Academy.
His teacher, Sara Green, ensures classroom work connects to real life.
"It's my goal as a teacher and specifically a civics teacher for them to take whatever knowledge and skills they learned in my class and to carry that out into the world, to carry that out into their communities within Lexington. To carry that out into the communities on the state level," Green said.
Green brought her students to a city council meeting and linked them with local stakeholders and agents of change.
One of those leaders, Devine Carama, recently called on the community to improve safety near Centre Parkway.
"I think there's a long term strategy that needs to be enacted, but right now, we gotta do something for the immediate," Carama said.
Several initiatives have been enacted by ONE Lexington and other community partners to help make children and residents in the area feel safe again. The first step happened when volunteers went door to door passing out surveys to neighbors and residents to learn what their issues are.
That's where Carama and Goree's paths meet.
"Devine Carama reached out to my civics teacher and said we need fliers and we need them in a short amount of time," Goree said.
Goree designed that flier and, with Green, handed them out to dozens of neighbors near Centre Parkway. Each flier included a short survey for residents to report concerns like safety.
"So the more youth and students we can get involved with this process, the more that they're going to carry that on into adulthood and say, listen, this is what's going on at Center Parkway or Woodhill or whatever the case may be, I need to go help," Green said.
From teacher to student, student to neighbor, it's a message rippling through Lexington — everyone has a voice, it's just a matter of using it.
"They can do more than they think they can for the community," Goree said.
ONE Lexington continues its efforts in the Centre Parkway neighborhood. Search ONE Lexington on social media to learn when community members are meeting and how you can get involved.
