A Chattanooga-based collective has asked Hamilton County officials for a $100,000 grant to mentor and protect the city’s youth as it seeks to help fend off a surge in gun violence.
The Light House Collective, whose members began working together in the community about two years ago, made their case Wednesday at a Hamilton County Commission meeting for the three-year grant by citing a string of recent shootings in the city amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A grant could be funded by federal coronavirus relief money, commissioners said.
“Why is this important? Because young peoples’ lives are at stake,” said the Rev. Chris Sands, one of the organization’s founders, also a youth pastor at Olivet Baptist Church.
Since Saturday, four people have been shot and three have died in Chattanooga. In late September, two women were shot and killed and five more were injured in a shootout on Grove Street, which prompted a community meeting earlier this month.