ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 An Allentown woman who dedicated her life to curbing gun violence after her son was fatally shot will now advise some of Pennsylvania\u2019s top officials.<\/p>\n
Jeani Garcia, who took the helm at Promise Neighborhoods this year, was recently named to serve on the executive committee for the state\u2019s Office of Gun Violence Prevention. She is one of 29 advocates and experts who form the inaugural committee.<\/p>\n
Garcia has said she found her son\u2019s bloody body in his bed in 2012 after he was shot and killed by gang members.<\/p>\n
She channeled her grief into action by searching for her son\u2019s killer and fighting for legislative changes.<\/p>\n
Garcia became an activist and a credible messenger, working with juveniles in the criminal justice system and other at-risk kids to push them away from violence. She took over as Promise Neighborhoods\u2019 director of operations in September 2017 and served almost eight years in that role.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really just brings my life full circle.”<\/p>\n
Jeani Garcia, Promise Neighborhoods executive director, on her new advisory role<\/p>\n
Garcia was promoted to interim executive director this spring. She succeeds Hassan Batts, who established the nonprofit eight years ago.<\/p>\n
Several months later, she was named to advise Lt. Gov. Austin Davis on strategies to prevent others from suffering from gun violence and its fallout.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really just brings my life full circle,\u201d Garcia told LehighValleyNews.com after being named to her advisory role.<\/p>\n
She said it will give her opportunities to spread effective strategies and help coordinate \u201chow we need to work together to address this issue of gun violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garcia plans to share insights on how Allentown officials and advocates helped drive homicides to their lowest number in more than 30 years in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe community who is closest to the pain is closest to the solutions.”<\/p>\n
Jeani Garcia, Promise Neighborhoods executive director<\/p>\n
She said it\u2019s \u201cvery important\u201d for the state\u2019s third-largest city to be represented on the Office of Gun Violence Prevention\u2019s executive committee.<\/p>\n
‘Boots to ground’ programs<\/p>\n
Garcia called for Gov. Josh Shapiro\u2019s administration to \u201csupport grassroots organizations all across the state of Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also urged support for gun-violence-prevention programs that put \u201cboots to ground,\u201d like credible messengers and \u201cviolence interrupters.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe community who is closest to the pain is closest to the solutions,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania\u2019s Office of Gun Violence Prevention was first opened in 2019 to coordinate state agencies working on gun violence prevention; then-President Joe Biden in 2023 urged states to establish offices similar to Pennsylvania\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Shapiro signed an executive order in September 2024 to re-establish the office within the state\u2019s Commission on Crime and Delinquency.<\/p>\n
The office this year released its Initial Report and Strategic Plan for how to develop an effective statewide initiative to curb gun violence.<\/p>\n
Establishing a \u201crobust, diverse\u201d advisory group on gun-violence prevention was the second step of that plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 An Allentown woman who dedicated her life to curbing gun violence after her son was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,6214,121,120,6215,6216,6217,6218,6220,6219,6221],"class_list":["post-6952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-gun-violence","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-gun-violence-prevention-committee-pa","tag-jeani-garcia","tag-jeani-garcia-gun-violence-prevention-committee","tag-jeani-garcia-promise-neighborhoods","tag-pennsylvania-gun-violence","tag-pennsylvania-office-of-gun-violence-prevention","tag-promise-neighborhoods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6952","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=6952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}