PA House Judiciary — 2026-04-13

the broadcast to acknowledge it. So the hour at 10 a.m. having arrived, the House Judiciary Committee will be coming to order. Will the secretary please call the roll?

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Kenyatta?

Kincaid?

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Here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Nice to join.

Let's get the hearing started. Sounds good. I'd like to hear that. I'm glad you're here. Chairman Kaufman usually has eloquent comments to say, so you're a much better fill-in. I look forward hearing from our participants. I sincerely thank everyone who took the time to submit written remarks as well.

Good morning, Chairman Briggs, Representative Rigby, members of the House Judiciary Committee, and guests. My name is Kirsten Kenyon, and I'm pleased to be here with you today to discuss the Violence Intervention and Prevention, or VIP, grants program. As Executive Director of PCCD, I'm very proud to lead the state agency that administers this important grant program, of which I've had the fortune to oversee since its inception back in 2021. As I outlined in my written testimony, over the past five years, the VIP grants program has become a cornerstone of PCCD's violence reduction strategy. It has brought together evidence-based approaches with community-driven solutions. It also represents one of the most significant statewide investments in community safety our Commonwealth has ever made. As members of the General Assembly, you should be commended for your sustained commitment to supporting programs that prevent violence, address it where it is occurring, and helping victims and communities heal. I must note that the Shapiro Davis administration has championed further investments in this program, calling for a $5 million increase to the VIP line item in the governor's proposed fiscal year 26-27 budget. And the reason for that is demand for the VIP funding has always exceeded what we've had available, which is a clear sign that communities want and need these supports. In addition to growing state investments, one of the biggest strengths of the VIP grant program from our perspective is its flexibility. It allows us to support a wide range of local programs and activities. This includes everything from youth prevention programs, such as the very popular Building Opportunities Through Out-of-School Time, or BOOST program, which is a subset of VIP grant funding, to street-level interventions and trauma-informed supports for victims and families. Since its start, VIP has funded more than 390 grants totaling $216 million across more than half of Pennsylvania's counties. These grants are located in our biggest urban centers, in third-class cities, and also in our small towns and rural communities. Collectively, these investments reflect a comprehensive approach, which has positioned Pennsylvania as a national leader in community-based violence reduction. We believe it's an approach that's actually making a difference. Since VIP launched in 2021, Pennsylvania has seen a 35% reduction in murders statewide since that time, with declines in other violent crime and injuries as well. Preliminary figures also show that more than half of counties with VIP-funded projects also had fewer homicides in 2025 compared to 2021. Clearly, we're paying attention to these figures, and it is very optimistic to see that these types of reductions are occurring simultaneously with this level of investment. Throughout this entire process, we've also been paying attention to feedback from our applicants and our grantees about the grant program as well. Early in the launch of the VIP grant program, we recognized that there were many smaller grassroots organizations that we wanted to reach, but they had never managed state grant funding before. So after listening to them we made some important changes to the grant program such as simplifying our application process We strengthened our onboarding for grantees We improved our communication and we also expanded our technical assistance efforts Our hope is that these changes have made VIP and our other grant programs more accessible, transparent, and effective. In closing, I just want to say that while we at PCC are incredibly encouraged by and proud of the progress that we're seeing, we know there's a lot more work to be done. And we also recognize that the people who are the real experts are the folks that you're going to hear from now. Our technical assistance partners and grantees, they live this work every day and can speak directly to the challenges, the successes, and the impacts that they're seeing in real time. So I thank you again for the opportunity to be here, and I will turn things over to Will so that you can do your testimony. Thank you.

Good morning, members of the House Judiciary Committee. Thanks for the opportunity to share how PCCD VIP funding has strengthened Benchmark Program and expanded our ability to serve high-risk youth in Lancaster City. I started Benchmark Program in 2014 as a college kid with an idea. We've shaped it into an organization that works with young adults ages 13 to 24 who are at the highest risk for involvement in violence in the juvenile justice system. Many of those young people we serve are already carrying firearms, involved in serious offenses, or on a direct path towards deeper system involvement. VIP funding has allowed us not only to intervene, but to fundamentally change how and when that intervention happens. Contrary to popular belief, PCCD VIP funding is not a boring topic. But a few years ago, you couldn't have convinced me of that. I need you to know something important about small organizations like Benchmark and big organizations like PCCD. For years, I thought that PCCD funding was for anyone other than Benchmark, the startup grassroots organization with no grant writer and limited experience doing the work of mentorship. I figured only big, old, entrenched, bureaucratic, slow-moving organizations with a staff of grant writers had a shot at securing PCCD grants. But I was wrong. PCCD, with your support, has proven to me that nimble, effective, cutting-edge organizations who have big, bold ideas and often limited resources do have a chance to secure these grants and do so with encouraging frequency. Benchmark is an example of such an organization, and we've developed a relationship with PCCD through numerous VIP grants, a relationship that has enabled us to test out ideas, programs, and impact strategies that have changed lives in Lancaster City. Our first VIP grant supported the development of what we call the wraparound service model, which works with juvenile gun crime offenders immediately upon their release from secure detention. This funding primarily supports direct service staff, transportation, some food costs, ensuring that youth can consistently engage with mentors and services during a time when they are most likely to reoffend, which is immediately upon their release from detention. We tested out whether or not high-intensity, individualized mentorship could work for the kids that most people are afraid to work with. When you ask the students what they love most about this program, they'll tell you, Benchmark bought me Chick-fil-A all the time. And that's an acceptable takeaway from our work. But the truth is deeper. We broke bread together and had important conversations that we wouldn't have had otherwise. We got to the root cause of criminal behavior and addressed and resolved that behavior. Most kids would prefer to tell you that we bought them chicken sandwiches rather than discussed what really happened. We taught them how to break away from negative peers and kept them stuck in that cycle of violence. We gave them an off-ramp to the streets. Through this grant Benchmark served 63 high youth most of whom came to us directly from the detention center more than 20 of whom had firearm charges During program participation we achieved a 0 recidivism rate Youth who completed the program transitioned into ongoing multi-year mentorship, workforce development, and educational support services through Benchmark, which created this long-term path toward stability. Interestingly, our re-offense rate only increased if and when a youth was referred away from our organization, thereby breaking the connection to that mentor. The success of this program led to sustained investment from Lancaster County. What began as a grant-funded initiative has since been adopted and supported locally by a county government through an annual contract demonstrating that PCCD VIP funding can create programs that endure well beyond that initial investment. In this case, PCCD enabled us to test out an initiative that turned out to be the missing piece in a larger Lancaster County wraparound service model. Building on that success, our current VIP grant supports upstream gun violence prevention programming, which shifts the intervention earlier, before youth become involved with law enforcement. Think of it this way. At the scene of a crime involving a firearm, many individuals may be detained, but few may be formally processed or charged. What support could we provide to the youth who are detained but released from the scene of a crime? The ones who were adjacent to the crime, perhaps involved, yet not charged. Shouldn't we render some services to them to prevent future crime and or retaliation? Couldn't we argue that those kids are the definition of high risk? Through strong partnerships with our school district of Lancaster and our Lancaster City Police, we've created a pipeline that identifies high-risk youth within the school and within the community setting and then connects them with a one-on-one mentor from the community. It's the same type of mentorship as that aforementioned grant program, but for kids who have not yet been charged with a gun crime. We know who these high-risk kids are. We just need more programs to serve them before they become system-involved. The proactive model allows us to intervene at critical moments, reducing the likelihood of arrest and future system involvement. To date, that program has served 50 youth, including 35 already impacted by law enforcement and justice systems. And in a single recent quarter, we supported 21 active participants and delivered more than 250 one-on-one mentoring sessions. Across the life of the grant, more than 500 mentoring sessions have been conducted, and the vast majority of participants have avoided re-offense. with only one known re-offense, and then he was cycled into another program at Benchmark. In addition to reducing justice system involvement, participants are going back to school, developing and sharing their first resume, and setting realistic and achievable goals, all while receiving that constant case management and support. I'll be glad to report back on the final outcomes for that grant when it wraps up in a year. The impact of these programs extends far beyond individual outcomes. The cost of placing a youth in the juvenile detention center can exceed $100,000 per year. by diverting even a small number of youth from placement. Programs like ours generate significant cost savings for the Commonwealth. Looking ahead, the demand for these services is going to continue to grow. Our schools, our police, our community are getting better at identifying kids who need extra support, and we will need to develop new programs to provide that support. PCCD funding has allowed us to test out something that seems like common sense. If you know who the highest-risk youth are in your community, If your police and your school systems have identified them, give them an individualized mentor for a long period of time. Watch how it changes their lives. Lest we forget who these programs really matter for, I'll close by telling you about Ovette. He was referred to us at 16 years old and known as one of the shooters in Lancaster City. Whether he was shooting at someone or being shot at, his tattooed teenager face was plastered across Lancaster newspaper. I remember the fury that the district attorney displayed when the judge decided to release Ovette from detention for a second time. on house arrest to our first VIP-funded program. I swear we saw Ovet every single day, in person, over the phone, checking in with his mother, near constant contact. We gave him an off-ramp to the streets, and he took it. Slowly at first, because he didn't trust us, but then more wholeheartedly. There was more to him than the shooter, and he had never had someone to talk to about it. It took a year and a half for Ovet to change his ways. He got on track in school, he developed new habits, and eventually he graduated. him. We celebrated him. He graduated and two weeks later was the victim of a drive-by motorcycle shooting while on his front porch. He was seen as weak for exiting the streets, but he survived. We met him in the hospital. We re-engaged. We met him almost every day during his multi-month recovery, right back at it. It was exhaustive work for just one guy, but how much safer did our whole community become because we invested in the rehabilitation of this notorious juvenile shooter? Ovette is now 19 years old. He actually got a job as a janitor at our high school, and I see him often. Two weeks ago, I got a call from the police. Two guys with AKs showed up outside the school after Ovette got off work. They threatened him, and they tried to intimidate him. Ovette called the cops. The cops who responded were the ones who used to have to pick Ovette up a few years earlier. They were able to catch the two guys who threatened Ovette, and the officer had just called me to let me know how proud he was of Ovette. He asked me if we could stop over to Yvette's house and check in on him and maybe praise him a little bit too. We're happy to do that. PCCD funding is not a boring topic. On the contrary, it has been one of the most effective tools that I have ever wielded to help out kids like Yvette. Thank you.

Good morning, Majority Chairman Briggs and the distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity today. My name is LaShira Council, and I am the Executive Director of Chester Community Coalition, and I come to you today from Chester, Pennsylvania, a city that has been counted out more times than I can remember as a Chester native, and I'm here to tell you why that count was wrong. Chester has approximately 33,000 residents, and it's also one of the most economically distressed cities in this commonwealth. But Chester is also resilient, and when given the right support, Chester thrives, not just survives. PCCD funding has been part of that healing, and I want to show you exactly how. But before I speak about this work, I need to tell you why it's personal to me. In 2002, three days before my college graduation, I lost my brother, Stephen Lamont Kennard, to gun violence. Three days, I crossed that graduation stage carrying grief, wearing a t-shirt with his picture on and underneath my gown that no one should have to carry and certainly not at the moment that was supposed to mark this beginning of everything. That loss never left me. It actually shaped the lens through which I see every young person we serve, every family sitting with the weight of something no one prepared them for. years later I became aware of Chester Community Coalition and its mission to address gun violence through a trauma-informed therapeutic and healing lens that mission spoke directly to the part of me that had been searching for a way to turn my pain into purpose so I offered my time as a volunteer as a licensed clinician and that volunteer role became a part-time therapist position that part-time role grew into a full-time program director and today I I sit before you as the executive director This is not a career path This is a calling Every family we serve every young person we reach every survivor who finally finds their way to healing, we show up for them the way I wish someone would have shown up for me and my family. This journey is my purpose, and it is the foundation for which everything I share with you today is spoken. Chester Community Coalition was founded in 2016. by volunteers who were at a t-shirt demonstration for heeding God's call to end gun violence and noticed the trauma demonstrated with the total number of t-shirts in that demonstration. And they thought about the traumatic impact that those t-shirts represented for each family. We now work in the intersection of public safety, trauma support, and community trust. We partner with residents, schools, law enforcement, our safer schools, safer neighborhoods, or 3S and coalition partners, and local government. Not because it's easy, but because no single institution can do it alone. We are small but mighty, but mighty is the key word. So the challenge prior to receiving PCCD funding was that we were always one step behind. We were sitting with grieving mothers, fathers, children, friends, and families. We were showing up after the shooting, not before it. Chester's young people were telling us that they felt unsafe in their own neighborhoods. They believed the adults had given up on them, and we refused to accept that. PCCD's violence prevention grants gave us the resources to get ahead of the violence, not just respond to it. Our youth prevention initiative is built on one core belief. The right person with the right mentor relationship at the right moment changes everything. And for us, that includes our case management support, where individuals, community members, and families receive wraparound case management services to support with workforce development, navigating housing, mental health support, and reengaging in educational systems. One of the programs that we're very proud of, which is growing and piloted back in 2025, is our Wellness, Accountability, and Respect, or War Ready Boxing Program. It's a trauma-informed boxing initiative that pairs athletic skill building with structured trauma-informed discussion. Participants develop discipline, confidence, and physical strength through facilitated conversations about their experience, emotions, and path forward. We have a basketball program that's modeled and it has the same structure as the boxing program. And I will say most of the feedback that we get from our participants is around the food that's provided during each session. So thank you PCCD for providing us with the funds to be able to provide food, but not just food. We also provide transportation to and from all of our programs. I have a story worth telling. because behind every statistic that you'll hear about today is someone's child, someone's brother, and someone's future. I want to tell you about a young man I'll call Marcus. Marcus was 17 when we first encountered him. He was just grieving the loss of his closest friend. He was a survivor of the same shooting that took his friend's life. He had lived through something that should have taken his life in his perspective. and he was left to carry both the wound of his own survival and the weight of the loss that no 17 year old should ever know Our intervention specialist reached out to Marcus Marcus did not want to hear it Our intervention specialist came back anyway. Because our intervention specialist was a man who had survived what Marcus was surviving. He had lost people the way Marcus lost people. He had stood at the same crossroads and chose into a different road and he carried that story with him every time he knocked on Marcus's hospital door. He spoke Marcus's language, not because he studied it, but because he lived it. And Marcus finally answered. 18 months later, Marcus has a job. Marcus is a graduating high school senior, and he still checks in with the violence intervention specialist. This is not luck. This is not a program. This is what happened when you put the right person with the right lived experience in front of the right young man at the right moment and you fund them well enough to show up several times. The other initiative that we have been able to expand as a result of PCCD funding is our trauma support and community healing programming. The traumatic impact of gun violence does not end when the shooting stops. It follows us home. It sits with us at 3 a.m. It shows up in the classroom, in the workplace, and every relationship we try to hold together while carrying something no one should have to carry alone. In Chester, that burden is concentrated. Low-income families, communities of color, people have already been failed by the system that we're supposed to protect them far too long. Healing has been a luxury Chester could not afford, but PCCD funding is changing that. PCCD funding has allowed us to bring trauma-informed support directly into the community in a space people already trust. What that looks like on the ground is individual licensed clinicians in our office spaces who are also willing to meet folks where they are at their homes and in the communities. And we are asking folks to just show up. And again, we meet them where they are. We also found, as leadership, found it extremely important to prioritize staff wellness. As we know, the impact of doing this work and how it can impact us emotionally and mentally. So staff who walk alongside community members and experience the impact, we want to ensure that we support their mental health. And we do that by providing yoga for our staff members. We also have weekly and monthly supervision for the team, as well as team building events quarterly. I cannot sit before this committee and speak of Chester without speaking of Crozier, because you cannot separate the two. A city of approximately 33,000 people is now 20 to 60 minutes from a trauma center. Think about what that means the next time a traumatic emergency occurs. Think about what that clock sounds like. The people we serve every day are the people most hurt by this closure. The young people in our violence prevention programs who have survived shootings. The community members in our trauma-informed programming now have nowhere nearby to immediately access mental health crisis care. The families who build their lives around the jobs Crozier provided They are the same people and they are counting on us to say something about it in this room today Violence in health care access are not separate conversations In Chester they are the same conversation. You cannot ask a community to heal from trauma when it has no hospital. You cannot prevent violence when the systems that catch people's employment, mental health, and emergency care have all collapsed at once. For the Chester Community coalition the closure of Chester is not only a community crisis but also a direct blow to the foundation of the way we serve survivors and their families. Our hospital link violence intervention program was built on a partnership with Crozier. That partnership was not incidental. It was the infrastructure through which we reached people at their most critical moment. In violence intervention we talk about the golden hour. That window immediately following a traumatic injury when a survivor is most open to intervention, most reachable, most willing to consider a different path. Research and experience both confirm it. The hospital bedside is those first hours and one of the most powerful entry points we have. Our HFIP model depended on our ability to walk through Crozier's doors, sit beside our survivor, and make a connection. When Crozier closed, we lost that access. We lost that golden hour. Survivors from Chester are now being transported 20 to 60 minutes away to trauma facilities in other counties. By the time they are stable, discharged, and back in Chester, that window has often closed. The families we once met in a waiting room down the street are now navigating the system far from home, without familiar support and without us at their side during those critical first moments. This has forced us to reimagine our entire HVIP model. Without a trauma hospital as our anchor, we are building a community-based violence intervention framework that meets survivors where they are, at home, in the neighborhood, in the aftermath, rather than in a clinical setting. It is harder, it requires more resources, and it demands that we build relationships before a crisis, not only during one. And we're doing that work. But this committee should understand clearly the corrosion closure did not just displace patients. It dismantled a proven intervention pathway that we are now working to rebuild from the ground up. PCCD is not just important right now. It's going to continue to be important for us in the future. The work described in these remarks is working. perfectly not fast but it is working and it works precisely because it is community-based trauma-informed and relationship driven the moment that funding disappears so this is the infrastructure of trust we have spent years building you cannot rebuild that overnight so one thing I want to do is a little ask we ask that you know the government we know that the government cannot do that alone. So continue to allow us to walk alongside each other as we continue to do this work. As I mentioned before, Chester has been written off. I watched it happen from the inside as a daughter of the city, as a sister who lost her brother to gun violence three days before she walked across the graduation stage, and as an executive director of an organization that has chosen every single day to refuse the narrative. budgets get cut, hospitals get closed, programs in, and the people who remain are left to absorb what the rest of the world decided it could no longer afford. Chester has has absorbed the weight for decades. Our residents do not choose that. They deserve better than that, and they are counting on this committee today to say so. And we are truly grateful for the funding and support that we've received from PCCD thus far to get our work to where it is today. Thank you.

Good morning, committee chairs and members of the Judiciary Committee. First, thank you for the opportunity to come before you and talk about the work that has been accomplished with the help of PCCD in the city of Chester. As my colleague LaShira has mentioned, Chester is a city with a lot of challenges. We have had the opportunity to grow an organization through PCCD called Safer Schools, Stronger Neighborhoods, affectionately known in the city as 3SN. The purpose of that organization is to establish collaboration between nonprofit organizations in the city whose goals are to reduce gun and community violence. Often in a city as small as Chester, people are operating in silos. Everything for funding is viewed as a competition. The goal of 3SN was to let everyone know we can create greater impact if we work together. So PCCD granted us $3.2 million, and the objective was to set up a collaborative of these nonprofits that would target at-risk youth in the city and give us an opportunity to do a complete continuum of care. Realizing that a lot of violence among young people actually tracks back to a lack of resources. It forces them out into the street, into violence, trying to get things that many of us take for granted. food, shelter, just love, just being included. So the mission of 3SN is that Chester is a safe, resilient, and thriving community. That is our vision. Our mission is to build collaborative prevention, intervention, and transformational support services focused on youth and young adults to reduce gun and community violence in this city. We also recognize that it is not just the victim or at-risk youth, it's a totality of family and environment. So you can't just address one portion of that, you actually have to include the entire family and environment in that Our partnership structure is I work for Casa I a lifelong resident of the city of Chester born and raised has a 40 plus year career in law enforcement and retired and was so impressed by this organization 3SN. I came out of retirement to be the community violence intervention coordinator. I was very honored to be asked. So our structure is that CASA is mainly the lead agency because CASA had the fiscal capacity to manage this grant. A lot of the non-profits in the city of Chester, while their hearts are big, don't have the fiscal capacity to manage a large grant. So this was a benefit for CASA in that it helped CASA, who as you know helps children in the child welfare system expands services for the Chester youth that CASA serves. So our main organizations are the Boys and Girls Club of Chester. They handle our after-school programming, reach out to all of the young people through after-school programming and resources for families. My colleague here, Chester Community Coalition, who performs our transformational work in assisting in violence. And one of the really things that I must tag onto here is it is so amazing to be out in the community at events and to see how young people that have been serviced by Chester Community Coalition still relate to the help. that they often come up and hug their counselors and talk about how well they're doing in life and how much CCC has helped them. We also have the Chester Education Foundation. Chester Education Foundation provides our digital literacy. They provide our workforce development for at-risk youth. But one of the great star points for CEF is that we have a community resource hub. Because as I mentioned earlier, lack of resources can often lead to violence. That community hub was part of our initial plan to PCCD to set up resource center in a central location, easily accessible to people, and would have a benefits navigator and a licensed social worker who would help these at-risk tune into resources for not only themselves, but their families as well. That need increased tremendously when we lost the Crozier Keystone Health System. And as LaShira said, health care and trauma care is a great distance away. We also work with Making a Change Group. They provide our mentoring, our credible messengers, our boots on the ground information to work one-on-one with our at-risk youth in our school system. We have expanded our coalition, our collaborative, and we're happy to say we have tapped into Delaware County Council. They are supportive of our work. They have advanced funding for us to continue in certain aspects, particularly fiscal training for our nonprofits. We also tapped into the Office of Social Services for the Office of Public Defender and they have been a tremendous referral system for us and I will have a testimonial for you from that office is how we were able to help one of their at-risk youth who was homeless was sleeping on couches from his friend's house or wherever he could find a place and through our community resource hub and input from our other organizations we were able to find he and his family housing furniture and food so that is what the goal of 3SN is is to connect resources for everyone and to work collaboratively one of the biggest assets that we have is we have safe corridors incorporated safe corridors we invited into our collaborative and what they do is they are in charge of crossing guards. Crossing guards are boots on the ground. They cross our kids every day, but they also hear the conversations that our young people are having, and sometimes those conversations are indications of violence to come. So being able to have that resource through safe corridors has also improved our collaborative. The Office of District Attorney in Delaware County through their community partners of Safe Neighborhoods has also been an integral part of our collaborative and are actually at the table with us as we plan our activities and our strategies. So we are very grateful to them. In fact, we have partnered with them to apply for additional funding to continue the work with 3SN once our grant funding ends in June of this year. We have a sustainability plan. We have reached out to other entities in the county because our initial intention for this also was to create a template that could be duplicated throughout Delaware County where organizations could come together and collaborate and come up with solutions through lived experience and expertise to help these at-risk youth. We are extremely grateful that our funding allowed us to have WestEd as our technical assistance group. WestEd has to take a lot of credit for the success of our 3SN initiative. They have been able to provide us with growth. They have helped us to build capacity in our organizations. They have given us training that helps us in administration and fiscal management. But more than that, they have allowed us to lean on them to grow as we develop our strategic plans and our initiatives for the work that we're doing in the city of Chester. I also need to indicate that the municipal government in Chester is also at our table. We have a councilman who sits directly with our 3SN team and helps inform the work that we are doing. I want to say that we have been able to identify what works with at-risk youth, and that is by asking them directly what it is that they need. I don't think there's anything worse than someone who has no idea what you are experiencing telling you how to deal with it. So listening to our youth is very important Boys and Girls Club is also involved in the Pennsylvania Youth Survey which is done in the schools talks directly to students about what their life is like They answer through a questionnaire. That data is compiled, and it also informs the work that we are being able to do through 3SN. I am happy to tell you about the progress that we made just in the first quarter of this year. We have been able to stem community violence. And I do want to add another footnote as well. Last summer, the summer of 2025, Chester experienced zero homicides in the city of Chester. That is quite an accomplishment and goes to the work of this collaborative. So we're very happy to report that. We were able to partner with the, as I said, with the district attorney's office for a federal grant to sustain our work. We also have worked with Widener University, which has been a tremendous, tremendous resource for 3SN, providing space, providing expertise, providing social work counseling, and more importantly, training the first line workers of this kind of work. As you can imagine, if you do this work constantly, day by day by day, you also need some support. So through our efforts, we have realized that that is such an important part of what is needed. And Widener University, through their School of Social Work and through the funding provided by PCCD, has provided two cohorts for our first-line responders. and we are currently in the process of funding the third cohort for our first-line responders. Boys and Girls Club set up what they call Feeding the 400. In partnership with a local supermarket, they provide a 40-pound box of food for families in the city of Chester. They just had their second event this past February. We also have Making a Change group, which has mentored young people in the school district, and they report that they have served 32 at-risk youth through mentoring programs and things like that. Chester Community Coalition, through their wonderful boxing program, has instilled a lot of confidence, not only in males, oftentimes in at-risk, young women are often excluded or not thought of in that process. But there was a young woman who went through the CCC war boxing program who talked about how much it had inspired her and built her confidence and helped her to feel safe in the city. I don't want to prolong the testimony here, but I do want you to know that working in silos has not worked. PCCD has helped us to communicate that message through nonprofits in Chester. And now it is not uncommon for our nonprofits to join together in funding opportunities to see how all that work comes together and not just think, it's just for my organization and let's go for that. So we are very, very happy that this collaborative has worked so well, so well, in fact, that we have come up with the sustainability program to continue our work and to look forward. for further funding so that we can continue to help and grow the community and make it vibrant, make it thriving, and make it safe for our young people. So I want to publicly thank PCCD for believing in us and giving us the opportunity to do well in the city of Chester. Thank you for allowing me to share this testimony.

Rep. Thank you, Chair. And Cerise, LaShira, Will, and Kristen, I very much appreciate all of you being here. I'm a rep from Philly, but I appreciate the Gettysburg connection. Lived out there. My daughter was born there over 30 years ago. But I appreciate that you are bringing this perspective from across the state and not simply from Philadelphia. It's not just a Philadelphia problem. I personally do have close family members who have been directly impacted by gun violence. but it isn't something that we in Philadelphia carry alone. And I very much appreciate the concepts that you are expressing here to us today. And I was thinking about it and thinking I'm a fan of M&M's. I like the candies with the soft chocolate center, but the hard candy on the outside. You are giving us the hard data to support an approach that a lot of people think is soft. And we know it's not. You know it's not. You know that it is really grounded in what is happening in our communities. And it's also focused on the idea of making sure bad things don't happen. And I very much appreciate that. My one question, and I was struck by the comments about the impact of losing Chester and the idea that this is a public health crisis. A few years ago, we held a town hall that discussed the intersection between disability and gun violence and not simply focusing on things like the obvious of a victim who now has a disability and having to deal with that in a physical way, but also dealing with the mental health of everyone involved, everyone touched by it, by dealing with the perpetrators of the violence and what their disabilities are. The idea that so many people who are incarcerated for gun violence, at least one in four of them had IEPs when they were children. So if you could speak to some of those issues around that connection between disability, health, and gun violence, and how some of the work that you've already been doing informs that. I would appreciate that.

Great. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chairman. I'll lean over like this. I came in a little late, and I caught Ms. Cerise Dixon's testimony, which was fantastic. I think we should all move to Chester and join. join in. The work that everyone is doing together as a coalition is incredible. I do have a question about the crossing guard. It was called Safe Corridors that you mentioned. I was wondering if you had any statistics on that. And I find that fascinating that you chose to work with crossing guards to find and identify violence in people's homes. So if you could just give me any

And all of that just adds up to helping mitigate violence Thank you I going to Chair privilege open up a question to

Thank you so much, Chairman, for extending me this opportunity, being that I'm not a committee member, so thank you. I just want to commend you, congratulate you, and also thank you for the work that you do in this space and for doing it with purpose, passion, and intention. So thank you for that. My question, it'll be very brief, but as I'm looking at the ages that you serve, which is 11 to 24, and I want to also disclose that in my background, I used to live in New York City and I ran a community center, right, that was located in the middle of high crime areas for that purpose, to keep kids engaged off the street and put them on a better path. I'm just curious as to what can we proactively be doing currently in our elementary schools, in early childhood education, to start detecting or assessing a child's environment, upbringing, so that we can help them channel their energy, emotions, and make better or good choices.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chairman. The statistic that Ms. Sheree Stixson stated about that there's been a drop in shootings, can you tie together, anyone on the panel, tie together your work with that drop in violent shootings? Thank you.

Anything else, Melissa? No, thank you.

Chair Regby, do you have any closing comments for panel one? Yes. Thank you, Chairman. Ms. Kenyon, your testimony states $216 million has been awarded across 390 grants in 35 counties. Can you please identify specific examples of where these funds directly resulted in reductions in violent crimes? As a former research director, I always state the claim, correlation is not necessarily causation. But it is pleasing and optimistic to see that the amount of investment that we have put into this program

Did the STOP program come through PCCD?

I was a beneficiary that I twice went to Dallas, Texas on divesting violence against women seminars, so thank you for that. Have any independent evaluations confirmed the VIP programs rather than just factors that reduce crime?

Have there been any independent evaluations that confirmed that the VIP programs are actually factors reducing the crimes? We're actually in the process right now of working with NORC.

What percentage of VIP funding goes, one, direct services, two, administrative costs, and three, the consultants and the technical assistants? How is that funding broken down?

And your testimony states VIP supports community. Based on law enforcement LED approaches, what percentage of funding goes directly to law enforcement? I would say it's not.

Oh, my goodness. They put me in the seat, right? Mr. Keefer, you're a benchmark program, and I want to tell you, back in Johnstown, we have a program called Safe Places. You mentioned Safe Place to Go, where I have a local 1889 foundation who comes up with a $287,000 match that we put this out. and we have a ton of nonprofits participating within the city, including the YMCA, our War Memorial, Flood City Youth, Castle Box, and Coaches for Kids. Don't turn a good boy bad, right? A lot of good after-school programs feed a lot of kids on the weekends. Can you go into detail as to how they're selected to participate in your programs?

How is yours selected?

What portion of funding is currently supported by the local government versus the state funding?

Thank you. And for Ms. Counsel, can you explain in further detail how high-risk youth are selected

And what's your organization's annual budget and the percentage that comes from the PCCD funding?

Absolutely. Thank you. Chairman, thank you for the time.

Some of the things that I kind of took away is the relationship with Crozier, and we are having that challenge across the Commonwealth with hospitals closing and diminishing budgets and investment. Is that something that PCCD is monitoring as these programs face those same challenges?

And the other thing that I heard all of you is learning and making it better and listening to folks and listening to the kids, listening to the victims, and listening to the grant applications. One of the first briefings that Mike Pennington talked to 2021-22 was making it more nimble for PCCD to tap into those smaller nonprofits that, like I think a couple of you said, didn't have great writing experience, didn't have the level of sophistication that Ms. Dixon's organization had to manage such a grant. is in that kind of spirit, are you able to look to see what's happening in Chester and try to

community groups that are, is that something that is ongoing? Is that something that this report for University of Chicago, we're hoping will provide a roadmap? We're just trying to see there's

there's case by case i mean we like to highlight programs that we hear that have success stories

And I do want to end, but I could talk to you for a while. We mentioned in Lancaster the commissioners saw the investment and continued it Is that a concern that these grants are short periods have real impacts and then goes away

That's always a challenge, especially with these, because it's so competitive.

Great. Thank you so much. And thank you all for joining us. It really is remarkable, the work you're doing in your community. So thank you.

Hamlet, Doc, and Tiff. Sean, you can begin. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. Sincere thank you to the committee for the invitation to give testimony about the PCCD VIP grant program. A special thank you to PCCD, Office of Gun Violence Prevention, Lieutenant Governor's Office, and all the other state leaders and agencies for the partnership since 2022 that has allowed us to support the work funded by VIP, as well as supporting the administration of VIP funding from the state. My name is Sean Ali. I have my long title, Senior Justice Technical Assistance Specialist. representing myself and my colleagues, Lloyd Toscano and Kerwin Henderson. We're from organization WestEd, specifically within WestEd, the WestEd Justice and Prevention Research Center. We're a large nonprofit that focuses on research and service, primarily in the K through 12 space, but the Justice and Prevention Research Center works with justice systems public health and then works specifically in violence prevention and intervention as well So our role is the technical assistance providers in which we serve as advisors consultants coaches friends shoulders to lean on things of that nature. So I want to share with you all today, I'm going to speak from my own personal tradition of Islam, which allows me to best easiest explain how Pennsylvania has been doing really exemplary work in the prevention and intervention of gun violence. So these two concepts that I want to share with you all today, one of them is called AMANA, which is a sacred entrustment, and the other is called ISAN, or it's excellence, specifically excellence in service of others. So across our team, we have decades of experience in direct service and technical assistance, spanning prevention, intervention, re-entry, transformation, and healing, both through governmental and community-based efforts. We've worked extensively with the federal government, Department of Justice specifically, throughout the duration of their investments in gun violence prevention intervention over the last dozen or so years. We've also worked at state and local levels, both leading violence prevention and intervention efforts directly, supporting system-involved youth and adults and their families, mediating conflicts, as well as supporting the work in technical assistance capacity, obviously. So it's through these experiences, learning from the many incredible people from communities and governments across the country that we have learned the importance of properly balanced roles and responsibilities across interest holders as well as the importance of sincere and consistent effort. So for my part in this and for that of my colleagues at Westhead as well, our singular focus is trying to ensure that communities are being served justly and adequately. In our role as TA providers, that starts first and foremost with honoring the people that we're serving. Often as outsiders, at least to some degree, it's not appropriate fair nor effective for us to judge communities to judge people in them or to judge the people serving them nor is it even for us to assume anything instead when we work with grantees who are the front lines of efforts to prevent and intervene we listen we learn and then we offer various individualized targeted small group and universal supports this starts with understanding and connecting with the people involved as people so that we can truly understand what they need and what they want in order to be successful. So our AMANA, our sacred entrustment, is that we've been blessed with opportunities to learn and serve in similar capacities in other places. So we in turn have an obligation to share that knowledge to serve the people of Pennsylvania. Our striving for excellence in our role requires us to not take shortcuts by assuming that communities across Pennsylvania will have the same copy and paste solutions. Others elsewhere have had. Being sincere requires thorough relationship building and learning before we are able to even serve. It requires us to meet each interest holder where they are, each grantee, each PCCD staff member, state personnel, anyone. If we don't lead with openness, if we don't check our egos, our sincerity suffers, our service suffers, and in turn public dollars can be wasted, and most tragically and unacceptably, people will not be served as they need to be. Above the supporting role that the technical assistance providers play is the role of governmental leaders and agencies as policymakers and funders primarily. The drivers of violence, as you all know, are so broad, and the specific issues often so pervasive that not only is significant funding required to address a singular vulnerability, but funding must also be broad across sectors in order to meet the varying needs of communities. Historically, governmental investments have primarily been done through the federal government, though their role in that regard has changed drastically in the last year. By nature, being the most macro government entity, federal funding can only be so intentional, can only be so personal, and can only be so broad within a singular community or locality. By extension, the technical assistance provided to support federal funding could often only be surface level at best. Rather than being a support mechanism to ensure impact, technical assistance was often reduced to being another monitor of progress on grant milestones. On the other hand of the spectrum of levels of government are the locally funded and led initiatives. While that can be much more personal due to proximity as the most micro level of government, The level of funding required in communities faced with significant challenges around violence is often impossible, given the breadth and depth of programs and services that need funding across all these different sectors. So for these reasons, the state can often be the most suitable level of government to make impactful investments. But traditionally, most states beyond California, New York, Illinois, and a few others, had not administered large-scale funding for gun violence prevention and intervention. So with historic investments from the federal government in recent years through ARPA and other relief dollars, lots of which that went to states to be used at their discretion, innovative and wise states, Pennsylvania chief among them, seized the opportunity, understanding that the need to save lives of their people is perhaps their most sacred entrustment. Pennsylvania has demonstrated real excellence in service of others in this regard through VIP funding specifically. This has been demonstrated by providing the adequate breadth and depth of funding across sectors to comprehensively address drivers of violence at their root, for allowing a proper balancing of responsibilities across all interest holders, across local and state government levels, between governmental and community-based organizations alike, and lastly, by enabling us as technical assistance providers to be nimble enough to truly meet the needs of grantees to maximize impact in our role. lastly and perhaps most importantly transcending funding and policy it is also incumbent upon governmental leaders at all levels to show up in their roles sincerely simply as fellow human beings gun violence prevention and intervention work is deeply human and is deeply noble regardless of role status title or anything else if sincerity is missing then excellence is missing if excellence is missing then the sacred entrustment cannot be fulfilled people will not be served and investments of public funds will not be realized. But in this regard as well, I can say that PCCD, as administrators of these funds, makes a genuine effort to serve sincerely, to serve excellently. For example, there's my dear colleague and friend, Sam Cook, Policy and Legislative Director at PCCD. Sam is a kind, sharp, and dedicated public servant that fully extends herself every single day trying to serve the people across the state in her role at PCCD, specifically with her leadership on VIP over the years. There is also Crystal Lauver from the Fiscal Department of PCCD, who supports grantees with commitment, graciousness, levity, and real expertise in what is often the most difficult and stressful aspect of grants for the grantees, and that's the fiscal management. And there are countless others as well that quietly play their role, often out of sight, contributing to a greater good, and do so with real nobility and excellence. I applaud you all, and I'm honored to work alongside you. And this leads me to the heart and soul of gun violence prevention and intervention, and these are the grantees who have received VIP funding. Without the people doing the actual hands-on work on the ground, there is no prevention, there is no intervention, and thus no solution to the pervasive and often deadly issue of gun violence that harms the very people with whom we are all entrusted to serve. While grantees have the obvious sacred entrustment of stewarding public funds justly and appropriately, it is we, technical assistance providers, funders, and state leaders alike, that are entrusted with supporting them honoring them and ensuring that they have everything they need to be successful They are the front lines they are the superheroes and we are their help There truly not enough time in the day to share the amazing work that all the grantees have done with VIP grants Entire cities like Lancaster Chester and York being perfect examples they've seen real transformation from thoughtful and strategic VIP-funded initiatives and otherwise, which is the testament to the diligence of both the grantees and to PCCD. And to the question earlier, actually, about some of these other cities replicating successes beyond places that have grants. We've worked with places like Redding and Aliquippa who are just trying to form these collaboratives and brainstorm the ideas that can be pursued later in grants. So we are taking sort of a proactive role in trying to shape those in other places as well. Similarly, many counties have also benefited from the proper balancing across levels of VIP funding. Sorry, that VIP funding has enabled. An example of that at the county level is Allegheny County. Both with VIP funding and through their own sizable investments, they've undertaken novel approaches to centralize, violence prevention and intervention efforts across a very large and diverse county. At the community level, there are hundreds of community-based organizations using VIP funds to save lives every day. Again, too many to name, but we are joined by some of these wonderful people here today, both on the first panel and on this one. And my team and I have been very fortunate and honored to support some of their work. Some of these people that we have here today, in spirit of honoring them, I wanted to do so. Cerise Dixon, after a full, noble, pioneering career in law enforcement in Chester chose to dedicate her time and expertise to lead their citywide prevention and intervention efforts funded by VIP. As a part of that, as you all heard, LaShire's organization, Chester Community Coalition, that provides the invaluable hospital and community-based violence intervention work. And as they mentioned, which I'm glad they did, LaShire and Chester Community Coalition have had to navigate what can only be explained as a breach of the sacred entrustment by whatever powers that be with the closing of the Crozier Hospital in Chester. Such are the challenges that grantees face every day,

great thank you so much Sean we're going to go to Pamela if you're ready

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I'm honored. I'm the founder and director of Express a Path, a nonprofit creative arts organization based in Norristown. We're dedicated to empowering adolescents that are 10 to 19 through meaningful artistic and educational experiences. We provide opportunities for our students to shine through workshops, performances, exhibitions, public art, and community service. The program is offered in mobile and in-person formats at the Express a Path Creative Arts Center. Our programs reach youth across Montgomery, Delaware, Philadelphia, and Lehigh counties. Express-A-Path students engage in theater, dance, music humanities, visual arts, and STEAM-based learning that inspire creativity, inclusivity, and skill building. In addition to year-round school programming, Express-A-Path offers a summer camp and a weekly Friday night community craters social group, provides a safe, supportive space for teens to remain productive and to deter negative behaviors. Expressive Path strongly believes in the power of collaboration to build healthy communities. We partner with Norristown Area School District, as well as other schools, nonprofits, shelters, detention, and rec facilities. We serve approximately 2,000 students a year. We began our work in 2015 at the Montgomery County Youth Center, serving youth in both shelter and detention units. Since then, we have provided ongoing support to these teens, many whom have experienced abandonment, abuse, and neglect. These are the at-risk students benefiting from the support of PCCD. We have since expanded to serve 15 teaching locations, and in 2023, we opened our Makerspace so that we could increase accessibility for students to be able to walk and ride their bike to us. Through a focus on STEAM education and character development, we aim to build coping skills and self-esteem, provide safe, structured environments for youth, teach positive decision-making, and the importance of anti-violence and anti-drug and alcohol lifestyles. This work aligns with the goals of PCCD's Violence Intervention Prevention Initiative. Thanks to PCC's support, the Expressive Path Peace Project launched in April 2025. The purpose? To engage high-risk adolescents and middle and high schools, alternative schools, shelter and detention residents through consistent trauma-informed creative programming. Express-A-PATH conducts weekly Saturday sessions at the Montgomery County Youth Center to promote healing, reflection, and personal growth. At the core of our peace project is our scavenger hunt installations. As of today, students have created interactive anti-violence art installations across five locations, supported by an app that guides participants from site to site while teaching peaceful conflict resolutions. For example students designed anti comic books with blank pages inviting guests to contribute to their stories through words and drawings of their own The app then directs participants to each additional location whether a school a business or a park, creating an engaging community-based educational experience around anti-gun violence and similar topics. Another installation was at a public park. Youth restored a community park path featuring rock herons honoring lost loved ones due to violence. this we partnered with the District Attorney's Office ARD program. We have hosted two large public art exhibitions featuring anti-gun violence artwork from 120 students. Selected pieces were transformed into a public billboard campaign and all art will become postcards that will be sent to policymakers to raise awareness and advocate for change. Through the Peace Project, we engaged over 1,500 students and an even larger community audience, Express-A-Path built partnerships with the police departments, District Attorney's Office, and Norristown Victim Services Center. We've increased awareness among youth and adults of nonviolent solutions and shared sense of community responsibility. We held nine open mic nights and other community events around the topic of peace and anti-violence. Our students have toured Montgomery County Community College campus, inspiring them to envision a positive future. Express-A-PATH has benefited from strong support from PCCD and the technical assistance provided by WestEd. Staff has been accessible, responsive, and encouraging throughout the process. WestEd's guidance has been instrumental in strengthening our program development, expanding partnerships, and building organizational capacity. Their support has empowered us to grow and take on larger initiatives such as Peace Project Phase II, Crime Prevention through Environmental design. Phase two of the Peace Project will integrate CPTED principles through environmental and artistic inventions that enhance safety, reduce opportunities for violence, and build community pride. Students will help design and implement improvements in dilapidated spaces through lighting, murals, and clear pathways that increase visibility and accessibility, transforming underused public areas into environments that deter crime. We look forward to continue successful partnership with PCCD and are grateful for the opportunities they have given us, our students, and our community. Thank you. Thank you very much. Sorry. Doc, if you want to just pull

in my previous occupation. Good morning. My name is Dr. John Tolino. I'm the co-coordinator for the Community Partnership for Gun Safety in Monroe County, Pennsylvania. I would like to also introduce the other co-coordinator who is here today, Mr. Jake Jacobson, who's a Gulf War veteran and also a retired police officer from the Stroud Area Regional Police Department. So thanks, Jake, for coming today. Thank you for joining us. I'm honored and humbled to speak before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the purpose and function of the Community Partnership for Gun Safety, as I'll refer to in my document as CPGS. This grant was established in order to deal with several very important facts of information that became the focal point of the development for this grant. One of those important facts is that 75% of every household in Monroe County has a legal weapon in it. We know that. Additionally, Monroe County leads the state and national average in suicide amongst adult males. Give you a second to just let that sink in for a moment. Monroe County. My presentation today may be vastly different than presentations you have had in the past. As today, in order to best explain the purpose and function of the CPGS, I'm going to tell some stories. The stories I'm going to tell are shared at each of our CPGS gun safety classes by the Monroe County District Attorney, Mr. Mike Mancuso. These stories will provide clarity as to the importance of safely storing guns within your household. We believe that the days of storing a handgun that's loaded in your nightstand or a shotgun that's loaded behind your door, your bathroom door, are all over. They have to be over. We have to make a move. We have to do something to protect the lives of people. There will be a total of four stories, and then I will provide details about what our CPGS program does, and I will provide what Mr. Jacobson and I, along with many others, believe is the missing link, what I refer to as in gun ownership. Story one, the little boy in the football helmet. All of these things happen in Monroe County. So the four stories I'm going to tell you. I will keep it brief. I promise I'll stick to the timeline. I practice this. A little boy was fixated by a football helmet that was up on a shelf in their TV room. A little boy was left alone one day. We're talking about a seven-year-old little boy. He decided to climb the shelf. It happened to be a Philadelphia Eagles football helmet. He always wanted to get to that helmet. He climbed the shelf. He slid the football helmet off the shelf. Down comes a loaded handgun. So what does a little boy do? He picks the handgun up. He's playing with the handgun. He has the muzzle face towards his chest, and he shoots himself. Clearly, that's a problem. Story two, the nurse who was late to work, a woman left her house one day with two kids in the house, a little girl and a little boy. She was in a hurry. She left her purse on the kitchen table. She left for work, decided not to turn around and get her purse, but clearly the little boy knew there was something in that purse and immediately went to the purse when that woman left for work. He found a handgun, a loaded handgun in the purse, wound up shooting his little sister to death. Number three, the story of the couple who were forever in love, older couple in a fairly affluent community in our area, Both retired, both falling into various illnesses. The kids did not live in the area. The adult children did not live in the area, but they did come up and make sure that they cleaned out. The gentleman was a gun collector, and they cleaned out all of the guns but one because that was the father's favorite gun. But they took all the ammunition with them. A neighbor hadn't heard from the two individuals in a while. She lives right next door, and usually they're kind of kibitzing back and forth. So she decides to take a walk over one day. This is about three days after. She hasn't heard them in three days. She finds the wife shot to death and the gentleman committed suicide. When the family was notified, they thought they got all the ammunition out of the house. Clearly an issue. The last story took place when I happened to be, I'm a retired school superintendent, as Chairman Briggs knows. and I was asked to be an interim superintendent in the East Stroudsburg Area School District, fairly large school district, about 10,000 students. And while I was there, I get a phone call one night asking if two students, if two 10-year-olds were on our list because it was a private development and they wanted to see if we could provide any sort of trauma work the next day at school for these two little guys And the story goes that they were living their two cousins they were living with their aunt and they happened to surprise her one night while she was in her bedroom. She'd just gotten home from work, so they kind of burst into the bedroom. This is how the story goes. And she dropped her semi-automatic pistol, which she had out, whether putting it away, cleaning it, don't know. When the gun dropped, it went off, which is, I don't want to get into gun ownership or how that particularly works, but next to impossible. And one little guy was shot in the leg. Now, a death did not occur, but that was what we would consider to be an unexpected discharge. So the stories that I just told clearly tell the stories. And I just shared with you, each of them is a real story and happened in Monroe County. There's many more that I could tell, by the way, but I don't want to bring everybody down on a beautiful Monday. Our program is designed around the safe handling and storage of guns, and we also have a component that allows for the CPGS to get involved when there are mental health issues in a household. If you call us to inform us that someone in your household is struggling with mental health issues and you own guns, we will get them out of the house for you and store them at a third party. We're not sending the sheriff's department to your house. We're not sending local PD or the state police to your house. If you inform us, we have a third party. It's a private vendor, Pocono Gun Keepers, and it's one of only a very few of this type of business that does what he does. We'll store the guns for you free of charge, get them out of the house, and on top of that, we will put you in touch with the right mental health professionals in Monroe County to try to help the person in your family, and your family, by the way. The CPGS program has also held two – another – one of the things that we do, one of our charges, is to educate the community members. We're talking a lot about education here. We did a grant of – we did a survey, or if that Sean was involved in, I might add, and we thank him for all that. We surveyed over 1,500 high school students to get their flavor on what have you seen, what have you – what are you around? Have you ever been around guns? Have you ever seen gun violence? Those types of questions. So that's been done. We have that research. and our CPGS program, we also hold gun safety classes. We will continue running these classes on a monthly basis. During the classes, we explain the purpose of the program, our program, and then we have presentations. We have a presentation on mental health and suicide that in the two classes we've been able to hold so far, it has captivated the people there because you might note that you're going to get, it's a very mixed group of people that we get at these gun safety classes, very eclectic. There tends to be some younger adults. There tends to be some folks that have owned firearms forever. And there also tends to be a lot of women. There also tends to be the side to believe that we are all about trying – this is the first step in trying to take your firearms away, and that's not what we're about. We don't want to take your firearms away. What we want to do is make sure you store them safely and properly so that my 8-year-old granddaughter doesn't go into a house one day with a friend who happens to have a handgun or any gun that's not stored properly, and suddenly there's a problem. That's what we're all about. The next presentation during our evening is the safe handling of guns. And believe it or not, that's the shortest part of our evening because it's not hard, folks. And we have the sheriff's deputies that do that. It's not myself or Jake, although Jake would be qualified to do it. I wouldn't be qualified to teach it. But we have the sheriff's deputies do it who are armory officers. They certified in the safe techniques and how to handle a handgun and how to safely load and store weapons At the conclusion our prosecutor Mike Mancuso does pretty much the same presentation I did for you but can elaborate more from the legal side and what he sees every day. And the first time I heard it, I was dumbfounded. And I was so captivated by it, and so was our audience, because these are real issues that happen every day in Monroe County. I shouldn't say every day. That's not fair. But that happened in Monroe County. Mike will then also get into the information with regard to the legal side. I see you're paying deep attention. I certainly appreciate that. So he'll talk about all those pieces of this and what he sees every day. At our classes that we offer, they're free of charge. Every participant gets information about our program. I brought a lot of printed information today. But they also receive a free safety lock, a cable gun lock, and they also, every participant has entered into a drawing. At the end of the night, we give away a biometric gun safe because the fact that you decide that your handgun should be stored in a nightstand because you can't get to it if someone breaks in your house is ridiculous. With today's technology, it's absolutely ridiculous, and I'll argue that with anybody. So we give away a biometric safe as well that, by the way, myself and Jake purchase. They're not expensive. So we purchase it, and we donate it to the program. So now let's talk about the missing link. And the missing link, the best way for me to explain this is to explain this program the way I explain it to my 89-year-old mother. And it's pretty simple. I say, Mom, and I have it in quotes here, so I make sure I keep referring to my mother. Mom, I can take you right now to a local gun store in Monroe County, and within 20 to 30 minutes, since you have a clean record, you can walk out of here with a handgun. And believe me, folks, it sounds like I'm coming across as being against that. I'm not against that. I understand it. That's the system that we have. So then I say to her, you know what, Mom, on top of that, I can immediately take you over to the Sheriff's Department. And if we decide to do it online or if you decide to do it by paperwork, you either have a concealed carry permit in, let's say, a couple hours if you do it online, because I know the folks there because we work with them. So they're going to kind of push it through as long as everything's in order. Or do it by paper. It's going to be two or three weeks. Pick up a concealed carry permit. But the interesting part about this is at no time will my mother ever have to take a course on how to safely store, handle, shoot that gun. ever. That's the missing link. That's what I refer to. A and B. A is purchase a gun, walk out of the store with it, with ammunition, I might add. And again, this is not an indictment of the system. I understand how the system works, and I get it. And then B, if you want to conceal, carry it, but at no point in time, Mom, have you ever been taught how to safely store, handle, and shoot that weapon? So I think that's a discussion that's on a greater scale. Right now what Jake and I and many other people on our committee are trying to do is educate individuals how to safely store, especially some of the people that are just purchasing guns. Monroe County, the gateway to Monroe County is Route 80, and we live right on that border. I literally live probably a half a mile from the Delaware River. I'm that close to the Jersey border. Jake is maybe a few more miles inland than I am. But that's the gateway is Route 80, so people move to Monroe County. And one of the freedoms that they have right away coming into Pennsylvania from whether it's New York or New Jersey or anywhere else, is the ability to purchase guns, but we're not doing a real good job in having that coursework taken care of I will stop at that but again I want to thank each of you for being here today I truly honored and humbled to be sitting here I didn think that this thing would bring me down to Harrisburg and Jake as well, but we are honored to be here. So thank you. Well, thank you. And

Dave keeps giving me a tap. All right. Hello. Can everyone hear me? Well, I first want to thank you guys for having me today. I also want to thank every speaker before me for leaving me 10 minutes, and I don't have no pressure at all, but I'm going to get through this. First, before I start, let me introduce myself again. I am Tiflo from York, PA. I am the GVI project manager. I am also the founder of More Graduations and Less Funerals. We will get a little bit more into that. I'm looking at time if I have enough time to explain. I'm here for one thing and one thing only. Just to publicly say thank you, that PCCD saves lives. I could have came with, and I have some, but the data and anything that is, I like to refer Google, chat GBT, where you can just put in York PA, you can find the numbers. You can find our annual report. You can find the things, right? But the things that some people cannot find is not in a search engine. Sometimes it's right in front of your face. So first I want to say that in 2021, I was York PA's first credible messenger. A credible messenger is a person with lived experience that, as I've heard before, knows the language, right? And I was able to get in my community with limited resources and just have conversations with young people that reminded me of myself at one point in time. And because of that work, we have started something major in York. And even with that, I just need again to say thank you, because without the PCCD funding, I would probably not be sitting here right now in front of view, you guys were able to fund that position for me. And because of that investment, again, something shifted in my community. The young people in my community started to live and not die. I am from York, PA, born and raised, and I'm going to take 30 seconds to explain that more graduations, less funerals was birthed not out of fun, not for recognition, but it was born out of pain. Prior to being a credible messenger, I worked at York City School District for eight years as a security guard. And in those eight years, when I came in the doors in August, I would be so excited to see these young people. They would come in, they would hug me, they would do all the things. But in that same time, and they always say two things can be true at once. As happy as I was was as scared as I was, right? They come in, they're happy, I'm happy, but as they walk through the doors, I always wonder which two were going to die by June, right? Because I knew that within those eight years, I was going to at least two funerals per year, but I was only going to one graduation. So I kept screaming and screaming, and I felt like no one heard me, and I'm like, look, we need more graduations and less funerals, but no one really heard me. So this has been a thing since 2013, 2014, but I kept it with because I made a promise that I was going to attend more graduations and less funerals. Even with that, I started with self, right? I'm like, I go back to school and I get a degree, I can show these young people that we can go to more graduations and less funerals. And I did that. I went to school. I got a degree in education. I thought I was going to be a superintendent one day, but then things shifted again, right? As I was getting my degree, that's when I became a credible messenger. Someone said, well, hey, matter of fact, we're going to do, I'm going to do one better. Our commissioner, Michael Maldreau, tapped me on my shoulder and said, hey, I think that you would be great in this position. I looked at him and I said, I think you're crazy. I have good benefits here. I'm here with the kids. I have my degree. It gets no better. But he said to me, well, Tiff, there are 1,500 kids in this building. And I said, yes, I know. And he said, if you become a credible messenger, you can take care of 50,000 people. Well, that scared me even more. And he told me about funding. He said, well, you know, this is limited funding. And I said, oh, no, dude, you got it, right? But when I went back into my prayer corner, I said, oh, man, if I only have one year to do the best that I can, if that's all I have, I can always fall back on this degree. I couldn't fall back on that opportunity. So I took that year in 2021, and I risked it all. I didn't sleep. I didn't eat. My family was still upset with me. My son was upset with me. I didn't care. Only thing I wanted to do was save lives. Only thing I wanted to do was find resources, partner with anyone that was, and I have to take it to the streets when I say this, on the same type time as I was, my children taught me that. And that means that they understood the assignment. We need to make sure that these young people are living in our community. So even with that terminology, I understood that PCCD understood this, right? They understood that the people closest to the problem had the answers, And they believed in me and they poured into me and others did as well. Throughout time, our numbers started to slow down. In 2021, we had 12 people that died. And the work that we do, anytime there is a shooting in our community, this phone that's to the right of me goes off and I must show up. We're on the scene. We're in the hospital. We are wherever. Again, why? We are familiar with these people. And yes, we have a relationship with law enforcement, but we want to be honest here. Community and law enforcement doesn't always have the best relationship. So when you have a familiar face coming to the scene of an incident where a young person is dead or shot, they will be more comfortable to talk to me rather than in law enforcement. So in 2021, there were 12 homicides. In 2022, we had an uptick, 20 homicides, young people. And I must tell you that all 20 I went to, either at the scene or at the hospital. One in particular, I remember I was with my family, and I was in, I don't know, Florida or somewhere. And I remember seeing that this young man had been shot over 60 times, maybe more. One person, 60 bullets. And I'm in Florida. And I told my family, pack up, we have to go. I'm not sure what I thought I could do, but just my presence alone was important enough for me to get back. Of course, my family was upset, but I wasn't, right? And just having that, I came back and we still did the work. We were able to get more funding and we were able to hire another credible messenger. And 2023 when we went from 20 homicides we dropped it to five So I like okay the work is working right 2024 we dropped it down to three I like oh man 2025 we doubled it We had six And I like okay that not good As of today we sit at two. And as I wrote this last week, I didn't want to write it because I said, man, God, what if by the time I get here, that number spikes? And I was so hesitant to write that. And it's so crazy because Friday night, I had a shooting, right? I think I submitted this Friday. Friday night I had a shooting. I said, oh man, this isn't good. Luckily, this young man has survived the shooting. Then last night at 2.30 in the morning, we had another, right? But this person, young lady, has survived as well. However, the numbers are still down. But for me, one is too many. The numbers that I shared with you, the homicides, that's 48 lives. That's 48 families. And that's just one too many for me. As I stated, in 2022, we saw the spike. Violence increased by 67%. And then, like I said, in 2022, 2023, we saw the shift, which we had a 75% decrease. And we continued to go on. Today, we are down 90% from our highest year. So that gives me hope. again, that we will all attend more graduations and less funerals. The numbers tell one story. However, the real story is the lives that are still here, right? So we lost many, but we still have some that are here. We have many that are here, let me say that. And why this works, right, is because we come together, like we like to call a three-legged stool, right? And that's law enforcement, which they have understood and respected that they cannot arrest their way out of this problem. Community, we cannot do it alone. We must stand up and we must do the work. And service providers, they had to understand that they always did not have the capacity to serve everyone, so let's all join forces and let's do this work together. That's why it worked, but those three things have been funded through PCCD. When we all came together, everything changed. We had again, the numbers. York City went 104 days without a shooting, something that York City

Great, sir. Okay.

I'm Tiff Lo. Awesome. Thank you, Tiff.

In total, originally two and then three and now six. And none of those are full-time. It doesn't cover full-time. It covers most of our time.

Oof. The more, the merrier. here uh the more i mean in in seriousness i mean as you can see the more we have the more we can do um with the bandwidth of three kind of core people and 500 and some grantees with the new crop coming in any day now um we can only do so much thus ta is optional um in a federal ta center that was nationwide in similar regard that i worked on through the bureau of justice assistance being with the federal landscape, it was, I mean, $5 million, $6 million a year, which was more robust staffing. But we can provide a lot of bang for the buck.

Thank you, Chairman.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I can't say without a rigorous evaluation, I couldn't say to the causation piece. The correlation from there, just doing this for over a dozen years in states and cities just like this, absolutely there's direct correlation. And it's the more funding that they get, the more success I think the state will see.