{"id":166326,"date":"2026-04-15T09:28:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/166326\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T09:28:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:28:06","slug":"west-philadelphia-students-are-combating-gun-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/166326\/","title":{"rendered":"West Philadelphia students are combating gun violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

They\u2019re doing this work as members of CHOP\u2019s Nursing Pathways Program, which introduces teens to careers in medicine. Participants learn CPR, shadow nurses at local hospitals as they work in intensive care units and meet with patients. Different groups of students have rotated through the program over the last four years.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in the ICU, seeing all the different patients, you get a different understanding and a different appreciation for how precious and special life truly is,\u201d said Zion Rhoden, whose mother is a nurse.\n<\/p>\n

The issue of gun violence is personal for a lot of students at Boys\u2019 Latin. Sample, who is interested in studying sports medicine in college, lost his uncle to gun violence.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just definitely weighs on my heart,\u201d he said, \u201cand why I want to keep guns off the street so nobody has to deal with loss or just like the feeling of being alone just cause someone you love got hit with a gun.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"ABoys Latin of Philadelphia High School students cheer on kids as they play in a basketball tournament organized to raise awareness about gun violence and prevention on Thurs. April 9, 2025. (Nicole Leonard)<\/p>\n

Guns might be appropriate in specific situations, but they\u2019ve been abused and overused to the point where it has created dangerous conditions in Philly communities, said classmate James McClan.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think that needs to be stopped, questioned and also just recognized,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we need to find ways to prevent it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The students partnered with the Shoot Basketballs NOT People<\/a> initiative, which was founded by longtime Philly native, athlete and advocate Gary Mills. He\u2019s also an assistant basketball coach at Boys\u2019 Latin.
\n\"AStudents at Boys Latin of Philadelphia, a charter school in West Philadelphia, play in a middle school basketball tournament organized by high school students in partnership with Shoot Basketballs NOT People and Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia, Thurs., April 9, 2026. (Nicole Leonard)\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what it\u2019s all about for me,\u201d Mills said at the basketball tournament. \u201cThe merging of basketball and gun violence prevention, they\u2019re just like the new generation of babies coming through the whole pipeline.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Students distributed gun locks and gun safety information during the tournament and held a moment of silence as they read aloud names of former students who had died.\n<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll also give out more gun locks, host workshops and attend other community events in the coming weeks as the school year comes to a close.
\n\"AStudents at Boys Latin of Philadelphia, a charter school in West Philadelphia, play in a middle school basketball tournament organized by high school students in partnership with Shoot Basketballs NOT People and Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia, Thurs., April 9, 2026. (Nicole Leonard)\n<\/p>\n

Dr. Dorothy Novick, primary care pediatrician and director of CHOP\u2019s Gun Safety Program, said the most important part of all of this has been empowering students and equipping them with the right tools to make change in their communities.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so incredibly powerful to realize that you can actually make a significant difference and you can not only keep your community safer, but even give back to the community,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, you have a group of kids who are saying, \u2018Yes, working in health care is a great way to care for other people and give back to the community, and also doing what we can to reduce gun violence.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The awareness basketball event is a step in the right direction, Rhoden said, but a lot more work remains.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of stuff could be prevented, but certain laws in place stop that from happening,\u201d he said. \u201cSomebody important to me always says to me, \u2018Prevention is better than cures.\u2019 So, it\u2019s better to stop something before it starts.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They\u2019re doing this work as members of CHOP\u2019s Nursing Pathways Program, which introduces teens to careers in medicine.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5956,11355,18513,69,71,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-166326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cobbs-creek","10":"tag-gun-violence-prevention","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","13":"tag-philadelphia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}