In the weeks leading up to Gun Violence Prevention Month (June), Tia Bell continues her longtime efforts to address gun violence as a public health matter, not one solely requiring police and incarceration.
This summer, she’s scheduled to launch T.R.I.G.G.E.R. University, through which 125 adolescents and young adults will once again engage in six weeks of project-based learning, academic support, and workforce and socioemotional development.
For Bell, this endeavor, now in its seventh year, will become a bit less cumbersome thanks, in part, to the Office of the Attorney General’s “Leaders of Tomorrow” youth violence prevention grant.
In March, Bell’s organization, , counted among nearly a dozen nonprofits that received tens of thousands of dollars for youth development and violence prevention.
“We’re at a turning point. I’m claiming it,” said Bell, founder and executive director of T.R.I.G.G.E.R. Project. “Prevention is being publicized. It’s finally being magnified.”
Since 2017, this local organization, which stands for “True Reasons I Grabbed the Gun Evolved from Risks,” has worked to destigmatize gun violence and provide a safe space for those who have and will likely experience what Bell calls the disease of gun violence.
The $50,000 grant awarded to T.R.I.G.G.E.R. Project opens the door for Bell to apply for another grant, in the amount of $35,000, through the ϰſ Community Foundation. It also allows T.R.I.G.G.E.R. University, taking place at Digital Pioneers Academy Public Charter School in Southeast, to operate full time, instead of two hours per day as has been the case in years past.
Bell also expressed plans to not only hire a prevention counselor and mothers who lost their children to gun violence, but expand T.R.I.G.G.E.R. University’s offerings to include a student health and resource center. Funds will also go toward expanding the age of eligibility for T.R.I.G.G.E.R. to include pre-teens and adult adolescents up to the age of 24.
“We’ve been operating so long, our reputation and impact exceeds our resources,” Bell said. “We’ve worked from mini-grant to mini-grant. I had to take attendance, fill out timesheets, do the curriculum and meet with my team of volunteers… Now there’s none of that. We’ll be able to expand. And I’m beyond proud to finally invest the resources into our youth.”
The Past, Present and Future of Gun Violence Prevention
On April 4, several community members, including the Rev. Anthony Motley, Jenise “Jo” Patterson of Parent Watch, and D.C. Shadow Senator Michael D. Brown (D), joined Bell in celebrating T.R.I.G.G.E.R. Project’s developments at the Anacostia Art Center’s Black Box Theatre on Marion Barry Avenue in Southeast.
This event, themed “The Past, Present and Future of Gun Violence Prevention,” provided guests, many of whom wore orange in honor of family and friends they lost to gun violence, the opportunity to explore the circumstances of T.R.I.G.G.E.R. Project’s launch.
That evening, they watched a documentary about Bell’s upbringing around 7th and Taylor Streets in Northwest. In the film, Bell, a former college athlete, took viewers back in time to her childhood to when she first embraced basketball as a protective measure.
Sports, she said, attracted her to the ϰſ Mystics. She also recounted how it exposed her opportunities at Deal Middle School in Northwest, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Academy, where she played under Frank Justice Oliver, Jr., and later H.D. Woodson before matriculating to North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Guests also learned about Bell’s late uncle, Doug, whose murder during her senior year of high school significantly affected her life.
On April 4, what would’ve been her uncle’s 39th birth anniversary, she paid homage to him by wearing his Solbiato sweats along with her orange blazer and brown cowboy boots.
Bell told The Informer that her story of loss allowed her not only to empathize with young people who she later encountered as a school-based counselor, but ultimately take the leap to build an institution that tackles gun violence from a public health standpoint. Such resources, she said, stand to benefit young people like Lyric Angel, a songwriter who performed at “The Past, Present and Future of Gun Violence Prevention.”
“Lyric Angel writes songs every day and that needs to be celebrated,” Bell said. “ It’s not often that a baby girl like that picks up a gun but she can fall victim. We need to uplift that when she’s the absence of the disease [of gun violence].”
Attorney General Schwalb Reflects on T.R.I.G.G.E.R. Project’s Impact
The about the “Leaders of Tomorrow” youth violence prevention grant program led to a partnership with the Greater ϰſ Community Foundation, and ultimately $1.5 million in grant funding that’s spread between the two entities and the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement.
Other recipients of the “Leaders of Tomorrow” youth violence prevent grant include: which serves more than 250 girls at eight schools with programming geared toward self-esteem and violence reduction; the Anacostia Coordinating Council’s Building Futures Program; ; , which serves 100 boys in a Saturday academy; , which is launching a pilot program to support youth and families involved in the Child and Family Services Agency; and .
More than 200 local nonprofits applied for the grant.
In speaking about T.R.I.G.G.E.R. Project and other grant recipients, Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb told The Informer that they stand on the frontline of prevention, which aids in his office’s work to comprehensively curb violent crime.
“We will continue the work that our statute requires us to do but we will do what we can to prevent crime and make the city as safe as possible,” Schwalb said, emphasizing that he doesn’t want to solely rely on the prosecution of young people. “We have to be honest about how poverty and institutional racism impacts violence and be mindful of those organizations like the T.R.I.G.G.E.R. Project that are making a difference with certain young people.”