{"id":272722,"date":"2026-08-26T18:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T18:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/272722\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T18:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T18:38:07","slug":"forgiveness-fuels-leon-fords-mission-at-the-hear-foundation-wpxi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/272722\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgiveness fuels Leon Ford\u2019s mission at The Hear Foundation \u2013 WPXI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Leon Ford is the co-founder and new president and CEO of The Hear Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening relationships between communities and public safety officials. Ford <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2022\/06\/22\/new-pittbsurgh-foundation-reducing-gun-violence.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">established the organization in 2022<\/a>, 10 years after he was shot five times by a Pittsburgh public safety officer during a traffic stop, an event that left his lower body paralyzed. He now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/07\/31\/ford-viewpoint-public-safety-workforce.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">works to create opportunities for Pittsburgh\u2019s youth<\/a> to become the next generation of responsible public safety officers with the hope that the infrastructure they build will become a model for cities across the country. He attributes the progress he has made since the life-altering encounter in 2012 to his ability to forgive the officer who shot him \u2014 a process he has detailed in a new play set to be performed as a fundraiser for the foundation and its programs on Sept. 16 at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">What is The Hear Foundation\u2019s mission? I founded it along with Scott Schubert, who\u2019s a former police chief (of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police), and our mission was to bridge the gap between police and community. We\u2019ve since evolved to have a workforce development component (Bridging the Badge) \u2014 we\u2019re creating pipelines for inner city youth to enter public safety (law enforcement, EMS and fire). Part of that is exposing them to these career paths and helping them build relationships. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/08\/24\/personalities-leon-ford-hear-foundation.html?ana=wpxi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/08\/24\/personalities-leon-ford-hear-foundation.html?ana=wpxi\">Click here to read more from our partners at the Pittsburgh Business Times. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leon Ford is the co-founder and new president and CEO of The Hear Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4344,88080,73,75,74,294,114775],"class_list":["post-272722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-community-relations","tag-leon-ford","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-public-safety","tag-the-hear-foundation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272722","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=272722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}