On Sunday evenings in July and August, hundreds of parents and youths ranging from elementary to high school descended on Miller Park in downtown Chattanooga to eat, listen to music, play video games, participate in dance competitions and generally enjoy the company of others
“It was just a place where we could gather and hang out and talk to each other,” said LaDarius Price, one of the founders of a local mentoring organization called the Lighthouse Collective.
After two high-profile shootings on consecutive weekends in late May and early June, including one that injured six teenagers in downtown Chattanooga, community leaders were eager to come up with ways to keep young people engaged in safe social activities during the summer.
The Lighthouse Collective collaborated with Cempa Community Care and the city of Chattanooga to organize the weekly gatherings, which ran through the last weekend of August. Organizers plan to bring the free event, called “No Smoke Sundays,” back next year. It averaged about 300 attendees per Sunday.