Lt. Governor Praises Anti-Violence Efforts by Promise Neighborhoods and LVHN

Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor made a stop in the Lehigh Valley Friday (7/14) as part of his Safer Communities Tour to praise anti-violence efforts across the state, including the partnership between Allentown-based Promise Neighborhoods of the Lehigh Valley (PNLV) and Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN).

Lt. Gov. Austin Davis said the Cure Violence program, which received a nearly $2 million grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) early last year, was part of success stories around the state of people who are making a difference in their communities.

Davis’s 90-minute visit to Promise Neighborhood offices on Union Street included public remarks and a closed-door session with Promise Neighborhoods and LVHN representatives, as well as local elected officials.

“Gun violence isn’t just a big-city problem,” Davis said. “It is a Pennsylvania problem and it’s uniquely an American problem, but it’s a problem we can do something about.”

Davis said Promise Neighborhoods and LVHN were representative of the many good organizations that are doing the work, day in and day out, to combat gun violence.

“We need a comprehensive gun safety strategy which includes continued investment in successful gun violence prevention programs like the one we heard from today,” Davis said. In addition to addressing the root causes of violence – poverty and lack of opportunity and education – Davis said common sense gun reform legislation also was needed.

Mark Cipolle, MD, Chief of the Division of Trauma at LVHN, said LVHN’s role in helping to prevent violence must extend beyond the hospital walls. “We can stop the bleeding and repair the broken bones, but that’s only a small part of it,” Dr. Cipolle said during remarks at Promise Neighborhood’s Allentown office. “At the end of the day, our No. 1 job is to take care of our neighbors, as we are embedded in this community as a health network.”

Melissa Mee, an LVHN violence prevention coordinator based at Lehigh Valley Hospital–Cedar Crest, said that hospital’s Level I Trauma Center saves a lot of lives, but noted that’s just the beginning for violence victims.

“When I arrive at a violence victim’s bedside, a vacuum exists between what put them in the hospital and how they react to what happened,” Mee said. “The goal is to be able to hand off the violence victim to support in the community, to services that can make a difference for them as well as their family and friends.”

Mee said LVHN is involved with Promise Neighborhoods and the Cure Violence program because it’s the right thing to do. “Our communities and those who live in them rightly expect us to meet this challenge,” she said.

The recent funding from PCCD allowed LVHN to add a violence prevention coordinator in its northern tier to serve other communities.

Jeani Garcia, Zero Youth Violence and Reentry Program Manager at PNLV, said the partnership with LVHN and funding from PCCD “have made it possible for us to change lives, not just in response to gun violence, but to prevent gun violence.”

Garcia, who lost her son to gun violence more than a decade ago, said the program can bring communities and neighbors together to produce solutions.

Dr. Cipolle said he and others know the road ahead will be hard. “Breaking the cycle of violence, especially gun violence, is difficult. It happens one person, one family, one neighborhood at a time,” he said. “But we know that every life we can save, every resource we can bring to bear, is a step in the right direction.”