New Haven youth festival Saturday aims to help end violence

New Haven youth festival Saturday aims to help end violence

NEW HAVEN >> In an effort aimed at stemming violence in the
city, the JWF for Youth Foundation will hold The New Haven Unity Youth
Peace Festival Saturday.Paul Ford, president and founder of the foundation, has organized
events since 1991 in memory of his younger brother, Joseph Warren Ford,
who was murdered at 15.
The event will include contests, games, face painting, show and
tell and free food and music. The occasion gives youths something to
look forward to, as well as bringing families together, according to
Ford.

(Ficklin Media Note: I love it whenever the City Seal is used in a New Haven Register article. I am sure that there is a reason that the city logo is used for some articles and not others, but I digress. I attended the first or second youth rally presented by Paul Ford at Edgewood Park in the early 1990's. I can see vividly Paul  with Joyce Poole and Mike Morand in particular in the kind of grove area behind the skating ring. Hat's off to all of the organizations and initiatives weighing in join forces against stemming the "rising tide" of violence. Stats do not really concern me these days as I am in my senior years. But philosophical and even from time to time practical concerns do cross my mind. Historically I am always amused by New Haven at one time being the gun manufacturing citadel of the world along with Hartford that the children of Winchester and Colt still fire in legacy fashion. Maybe actually the gun fire from the "state sanctioned" firing range that I hear in Westville come to think of it are the ghosts of the  "gun that won the west " acting out. Maybe we can erect a Berlin Wall around New Haven with check points frisking everyone coming and going.....)
http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20140523/virginia-man-sentenced-for-trafficking-firearms-in-connecticut