ROAD TO CHANGE MAKES PERKASIE STOP
PERKASIE » Survivors of urban violence and the killings at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. were joined by members of Pennridge 225 in bringing the Road to Change cross-country tour to St. Stephen’s UCC in Perkasie the night of Aug. 8.
They were greeted with a standing ovation, followed by applause at several times during the presentation before a full house.
Lauren Hogg, a Parkland survivor who will be a sophomore at the school this year, showed the audience her bracelets featuring the names of shooting victims, including four of her friends killed in the Feb. 14 shootings.
“I shouldn’t have to wear their names on my wrists. I should be able to look over and talk to them. I should be able to laugh with them like we used to in our hallways and they shouldn’t have to have been killed in the hallways that we used to laugh and talk about our teachers in,” she said.
Kyrah Simon, another Parkland survivor, who will be a senior this year, said there are killings every day that receive little, if any, attention.
“All the people that don’t get a platform to share their voices and share their stories brought me here today. I feel like it’s important that we listen to each other and we uplift each other’s voices,” she said.
Chicago resident Ariey-
anna Williams, 18, said her father was killed by gun violence when she was 8.
“I’m here today because I lost a lot of people at a young age and at that young age, I didn’t know that violence isn’t normal,” she said.
Her four sisters are growing up in an environment they shouldn’t be growing up in, she said.
“They can’t go outside. They can’t go to parks. They can’t even go to school without even worrying about if a bullet is gonna hit them because bullets don’t have names on them,” Williams said.
“At the end of the day, if we’re supposed to be United States, we’re supposed to be united in any type of way, any type of race, any type of religion,” she said. “Everybody is equal.” The tour’s purpose is summed up by “REV,” Hogg said.
“It stands for register, educate, vote,” she said.
The group is nonpartisan, she said. Voters should do research on the candidates, she said.
“If you want change, you have to know what that person’s stance is on the issues, and not just one, but all of the issues that you care about,” Hogg said.
Pennridge 225 member Joey Merkel said people who think their vote doesn’t make a difference are showing the pessimism that many have in the governmental system.
“If people are passionate about who they’re voting for, they’re gonna vote no matter what,” he said. “If you are passionate, it doesn’t matter to you whether it makes a difference or not. It matters that you support what you believe in.”
Many people have the misconception that the group wants to take away guns, Pennridge 225 member Lizzy Lomax said.
“A lot of us have come from gun families and we just want a safer country,” she said.
“That doesn’t mean taking your guns away. If you fit all the right qualifications, you should be able to get a gun, you should be able to protect yourself,” Lomax said. “If you’re gonna start prioritizing a gun over the lives of children, then it starts to become a problem.”
Pennridge 225 member Emma Hawkins said people on both sides should listen to each other and not get defensive.
“We want to protect your rights, but we also want to protect our children,” she said.
“You have to listen to people who don’t agree with you,” Hogg said.
“I know it’s hard sometimes but that’s the way we’re gonna make change,” she said. “By coming together and by finding common ground, that’s how we’re gonna push the needle forward and that’s how we’re gonna create a safer country for ourselves, our friends and our children.”
Many people don’t understand what a big issue gun violence is, Pennridge 225 member Anna Sophie Tinneny said.
“In this area, it’s not something that we have to deal with every day. It’s a privilege that we don’t have to worry about it all the time,” she said. “The thing about gun violence is that it doesn’t affect you until it does, and by then it’s too late.”
School shootings aren’t the only type of gun violence, the group members said, listing other types including suicide and urban violence.
“Every day shootings,” Williams led the audience in repeating, “are every day problems.”
“It happens everywhere, and in order for us to balance it out, in order to fight all of it at once, we need to recognize every single category of gun violence,” she said.
The Pennridge 225 received Saturday detentions and nationwide attention after taking part in the National School Walkout a month after the Parkland shootings. An indoor remembrance ceremony, sanctioned by the school district, was also held at the same time and students had been warned about the consequences of leaving the school building without permission to take part in the walkout.
People sometimes get punished for doing something for a good cause, Tinneny said, but offered this advice: “Just do what you think is right always.”