HAMPTON, Va — For the second year, the Hampton Commonwealth's Attorney's Office and the Office of Youth and Young Adult Opportunities have teamed up to promote gun violence prevention.
With the help of Operation Ceasefire and Hopeful Hampton Initiatives, an all-day free football event was put on for the children of Hampton.
"Gun violence is a major issue it is the number one cause of homicide between the ages of 16-25," explained Hampton Commonwealth's Attorney Anton Bell.
He says that these year-round events haven't just been fun for the kids, they've also been effective in terms of curbing gun violence
According to Bell, shootings have gone down an average of 56% over the last five years and homicides have approximately gone down 71% since last year.
"But it takes everybody, it takes a village it takes our stakeholders our city government, every person every neighborhood is involved so that we can save a child at a time," said Bell.
On Saturday, more than one hundred kids faced each other on the field. Coach Gregory Price says these kids learn so much through sportsmanship.
"Football teaches them discipline, structure, how to follow instructions," explained Coach Price. "There are plenty of times when mistakes are going to be made on the field. The kids learn how to respond and how to bounce back to the next play,"
Both the teams playing, The Tidewater Dawgs and the Kappa Cardinals were operated by members of the two Greek organizations in Hampton.
Coach Gregory who is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi says he grew up seeing kids go down the wrong path.
He says the groups are helping kids stay on the right one.
"What our organization is trying to do is give them some stability and give them some discipline and some structure and that's what the game of football provides," said Price.
