LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX News) — A Lexington woman is calling on her community to show up for its young people following a summer marked by violence and loss.
Anonimiss Rose launched Moms Outside, a community-led initiative aimed at getting mothers, aunties, cousins and other family figures back into neighborhoods to provide a safe presence for youth.
"It's been really rough these last few months in Lexington given the Tyler Smith case, given Di'Zhon, and also those youth that we lost to the jail system as well, and so this is an initiative for us to get back outside and be like, hey, we're not the police, we're just here to make sure that you guys have a safe space and that you have a village like we did when we were growing up," Rose said.
The initiative focuses on checking on young people and stepping in before problems escalate.
"Helping to get moms together, aunties, cousins, any familiar family essence," Rose said.
Rose says her involvement is personal. She is related to Di'Zhon, who was killed in an incident at Charles Young, and she was also affected by the Tyler Smith shooting on the Fourth of July.
"After Charles Young faced a very tragic incident with Di'Zhon, who was my little cousin, and thinking about Tyler Smith and the 4th of July incident that happened in July, it was just kind of like we don't know what our kids are doing anymore," Rose said.
Her grandmother and a friend started East End Day to bring the community together. Rose says she felt compelled to carry that work forward.
"I relayed the message to my grandmother. She was very heartbroken, so I was like I gotta do something as legacy as a granddaughter that is a part of that. I have to do something, so I stepped up," Rose said.
She also draws on her own upbringing as motivation.
"My mama worked really hard to stay all up in my business and I didn't understand it then, but I do now because the world has a heavy influence on our children," Rose said.
Rose is now urging others in the community to move from frustration to action.
"If we do more complaining than we do putting things into action, we can eliminate a lot of the problems that we're seeing. So get up, get involved," Rose said.
Molly Demrow is committed to covering the stories that matter to you. If you have an idea, please reach out to Molly at molly.demrow@wlex.tv
