Breakthrough Urban Ministries Hosts Fall Festival in Garfield Park
Community leaders and Garfield Park residents gathered on the border of East and West Garfield Park on Saturday, October 26, 2024 for the Madison Street Fall Festival, a Light in the Night event hosted by Breakthrough Urban Ministries. The festival featured food, games, entertainment, resource sharing, and discussion emphasizing the critical work being done to foster safety and resilience through the Scaling Community Violence Intervention for a Safer Chicago (SC2) initiative.
Family, friends, leaders and outreach workers gathered for a day of fun, and children in attendance enjoyed a bouncy house, face painting, Halloween candy, video games, free books, and resources from several different community organizations.
The event was planned in part by Breakthrough Urban Ministries, who intends to host several more festival events throughout the season. Also in attendance were collaborators from Institute for Nonviolence Chicago, Together Chicago, Street Priests, A&L Youth and Family Services, Lifeline to Hope, and Black Men United.
The afternoon was also a chance for community violence intervention (CVI) stakeholders to introduce the SC2 initiative to residents of Garfield Park. SC2 aims to scale CVI efforts in several Chicago neighborhoods, with a goal of serving at least half of the estimated 20,000 Chicagoans at highest risk of shooting or being shot. The initiative, and the work Communities Partnering 4 Peace (CP4P) organizations engage in, are thanks to a substantial web of organizations and service providers who do everything from crisis intervention to mental health care to research.
Breakthrough’s Grant Program Coordinator Semaj Bunch explained his part in the efforts: “I am tasked with collaborating with all the members in the SC2 coalition and making sure events like this are pulled off seamlessly. I also make sure we put the right victim outreach workers in position to scale these blocks comprehensively, one-on-one, and bring down gun violence.”
These partnerships within SC2 and CP4P allow Bunch to coordinate in-depth research on violence trends in the city. This comprehensive data, Bunch explains, “allows us to know who is being a perpetrator or a victim of gun violence… the organizations collaborate and deploy outreach workers to mediate these situations to prevent [further] violence.”
Chief Program Officer of Violence Prevention at Breakthrough Damien Morris shared why community events like these matter in CVI work: “These events are very important because you have to empower the community. These [are] the moments where you can engage with the community; like if we have to do a shooting response, I may end up seeing someone from this event at that scene, and that may be my inroad into me trying to reduce the violence. So it’s very important. But also, the community doesn’t know what’s available to them. And they also need to see that we’re united. A lot of organizations in the past worked in silos, so the SC2 [initiative] really forced us to work collaboratively.”
“You can’t do the work alone.”
Steve Drisdell, Senior Program Officer at MPI, further underlined the value of safe community gatherings. “When you do events like this, outside in the neighborhood in what they call ‘hot zones,’ it allows residents to reclaim the space. It allows them to come outside that house and get back to interpersonal communication, getting to know their neighbors. And that’s what makes them safe, learning your environment and submerging yourself into where you live. Not just being a taxpayer but being a neighbor.”
Breakthrough is one of 15 Chicago organizations representing CP4P, a coalition of nonprofit organizations focused on gun violence prevention across 28 neighborhoods.
To learn more about upcoming Light in the Night events, check the calendar here.