The march was scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday at Springfield City Hall on E. High Street.
Organizers Sydney Mollett and Dion Green spoke about their personal experiences with gun violence, leading up to them advocating against it, with Mollett talking about the shooting deaths of her family members and Green talking about his family and criminal history.
“I am continuing to fight for generations here and hope that we continue to build for the next generation,” Green said to the crowd.
“We are the footwork and we can continue to do this,” Mollett said.
Springfield has seen a high number of shooting homicides this year, with seven shot and killed in just five months, compared to 11 in 2023 and six in 2024.
This includes the shooting death of Randy Graham, 31, on May 14, followed by the death of 16-year-old De’Meko Taborn later the same day.
The city recently had to pause efforts to curb gun violence after the federal government canceled a $1.24 million gun violence prevention grant. Springfield had already invested almost $400,000 in planning and efforts to launch street outreach since the grant was awarded in 2023.
Caleb Perkins, Clark County gun violence prevention coordinator, was hired as part of an alliance formed by the city, Springfield City Schools, the Clark County Combined Health District, OIC, the Mental Health and Recovery Board, Community Health Foundation, Springfield Foundation, Clark County Juvenile Court and NAACP designed to address juvenile violence.
He now serves at OIC after the grant was frozen, and told city commissioners in February that the group planned to use four strategies to address gun violence in the city, including coordinating with existing programs for mentoring, developing a violence interrupter program, designing a youth center and creating pathways to get the community involved in the process.
Many of these steps mirror ones taken by the city of Dayton in partnership with a group called Cure Violence Global, which said that key reasons for shootings and other violence include drug sales and interpersonal conflicts.
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