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Gun violence activists holds community prayer for teachers, students as school starts back up
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BATON ROUGE -- Community members gathered at the 100 Black Men of Greater Baton Rouge headquarters to pray for the safety of teachers and students as they start school again.
Cathy Toliver organized the event. She's been an activist since her three-year-old grandson, Devin Page Jr., was killed. The child was sleeping in his bed when a stray bullet came through his window.
"I was gonna move out of Baton Rouge until this happened to my grandbaby. There was no way I was gonna let this slide. I'm fighting and I'm fighting forever," Toliver said.
She has been spreading her word of stopping gun violence and remembering the children lost to it. Her cause brought her to Washington D.C. after she was chosen by Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome to attend the "White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention" in March 2024.
After returning, Toliver had a conversation recently with teachers about going back to school.
"They shared with me that they're going to have to deal with students coming in with ankle monitors and have dealt with gun violence and all of that. And I asked, 'Are you afraid?' They said yeah we got to be very careful."
School Board President Carla Powell-Lewis says she had the same feelings when she was a teacher.
"I was expecting at the time and I remember deciding, although I love my kids and I want to make sure that they are not engaging in altercations, that I might need some help. So that's when I began to experience that fear," Powell-Lewis said.
When Toliver came to 100 Black Men with her idea, they were honored. Their headquarters is just down the road from where Devin was killed.
"This is our area and this is also the district that the 100 Black Men serve. The 70806. We think it's very important that we are on the forefront to help the community through things like this," member Redell Norman said.
Toliver says that gun violence is an issue that many are afraid of, but many are not talking about. She encourages everyone to use their voice start the change.
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