In the first three months of 2023, three Tacoma youth died as a direct result of gun violence. Another 10 were charged as adults in connection to violent felonies, including homicide.
On May 16, 2023, the City Council unanimously adopted Resolution 41197 acknowledging the devastating impact of gun violence in the city of Tacoma, naming the disparity of those impacts on Black youth, affirming its commitment to decreasing violence in the community and directing Tacoma’s city manager to implement immediate actions to bolster community safety and the wellbeing of our youth.
That resolution was the catalyst of Summer Late Nights, which opened its doors just five weeks later thanks to a partnership between Metro Parks Tacoma, Greentrike, Boys & Girls Club of South Puget Sound, YMCA-Pierce & Kitsap Counties and several youth providers.
Now, a year after its inception, Summer Late Nights has received a Spotlight Award for Program Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Wellness from the Washington Recreation & Parks Association.
“I’m so proud of the collaboration and work that went into answering this call on such short notice,” said Metro Parks Tacoma Board President Andrea Smith. “The success we saw in providing safe and healthy spaces for Tacoma’s youth would not have been possible without such an incredible team.”
Summer Late Nights operates Monday through Friday from 5-10 p.m. at 12 different locations including schools, community centers, Boys & Girls Clubs and a YMCA. Programming is provided at zero cost to students and offers drop-in attendance with a wide assortment of opportunities, including basketball and volleyball tournaments, art, music and STEM activities, mentorship and leadership clinics and more while socializing and building relationships in a safe and healthy environment. Each site also offers a nightly hot meal service to boost appeal and help alleviate food insecurity.
In 2023, Summer Late Nights recorded more than 12,000 visits from 1,687 middle and high school students across all 12 sites, which were chosen after examining the Tacoma Equity Index and assessing community strengths and disparities. Locations were prioritized in areas with low or moderate opportunity zones and programming focused on providing safe and healthy activities as well as minimizing barriers to welcome all teens in Tacoma and surrounding districts.
Summer Late Nights will return this year at the same locations beginning on June 24 and running Monday-Friday through August 30 with the exception of July 4-5. Registration through Tacoma Public Schools’ Compass/Family App is encouraged. For more information, please visit MetroParksTacoma.org/summer-late-nights.
It is long past time to quit blaming an inanimate object, guns, for a breakdown in civil society. Violence with a knife, which is apparently becoming more common, isn’t referred to as knife violence. When someone intentionally drives a car into a crowd it isn’t car violence. Or planes flown in to buildings isn’t plane violence. They are all violence caused by a people, and that is where our focus needs to be: on the perpetrators not the object. Tens of thousands of innocent people have died over recent decades as we try to sugar coat the real cause – a breakdown in civil society.
I don’t agree there is a breakdown in civil society. Violence is actually going down by most measures although the news about it is going up which creates the feeling that murder and mayhem rule. There is definitely an increase in hate speech and minor spats being settled by guns instead of words or fists. I believe this is largely due to social media and the proliferation of false and hate generating news, in addition to many other contributing factors (COVID, untreated mental health, cult like political leaders encouraging hate speech and an us versus them attitude, etc). However, even though people can be violent in many ways, the proliferation and ease of obtaining guns makes the smallest disagreement turn deadly. The statistics comparing the US gun deaths to other developed countries is clear. I also doubt that the gun caused accidental deaths (often of children) and suicide in other developed countries comes close to those in the US.
It is in fact 26 times higher than that of other high-income countries (https://everytownresearch.org/graph/the-u-s-gun-homicide-rate-is-26-times-that-of-other-high-income-countries/#:~:text=Share%20on%20Twitter-,The%20US%20gun%20homicide%20rate%20is%2026%20times%20that%20of,accessed%20January%207%2C%202022).)
Accredited by https://candid.org/about