Today, we celebrate a win for our friends at the Black Fire Brigade!
They joined 141 other organizations across Cook County as recipients of the Justice Advisory Council’s Gun Violence Prevention and Reduction Grants. Since the summer of 2022, the JAC has awarded $85M to service providers that focus on supporting residents at high risk of experiencing violence on either side of the gun. Today, an additional $25M in grants were announced in partnership with the Illinois Department of Human Services’s Office of Firearm Violence Prevention, bringing the total to $110M!
While this marks significant progress towards a better and safer Cook County, it still falls very short of the $500M requested by nearly 400 organizations to do this important work. Government officials must urgently work with our community leaders and stakeholders to not only close this funding gap, but to address the conditions that perpetuate violence in our communities.
For now: congratulations to our friends at the Black Fire Brigade and the 31 other District 3 initiatives that were awarded JAC grants! Thank you for doing the work that you do to elevate, uplift, and improve our communities.
To learn more about the JAC’s efforts to reduce and prevent gun violence across the country through intergovernmental collaboration, and to hear about updates on future grant opportunities, visit their website: https://www.cookcountyil.gov/JACGrants
