FXBG Advance Coverage of Sounding the Alarm
- FailSafe-ERA
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Sounding the Alarm: Local Nonprofit Organization Raises Awareness On Youth Violence In The Community
FailSafe ERA will hold an initial outreach event in Olde Greenwich neighborhood August 9.
Jul 31,
FailSafe-ERA founder Juanita Shanks thinks of her latest endeavor “Sounding the Alarm” as a trumpet calling the community to work together to prevent youth violence. Photo by Miguel Alcântara on Unsplash
In the wake of this spring’s fatal shooting in Spotsylvania, the CEO of FailSafe-ERA, Juanita Shanks, is fighting for a safer future for area young people.
“I remember Marvin Gaye’s song that says, ‘Save the youth, save the children’,” Shanks recalled.
Through FailSafe’s newly created program, “Sounding the Alarm,” Shanks is fostering a movement with the community to prevent violence and incarceration amongst young people.
“My heart is burdened,” Shanks said. “And I’m just passionate about it, and I just felt like we need to mobilize in order for us to save our city.”
The movement, which Shanks referred to as “Ground Zero,” will occur on August 9, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Olde Greenwich Circle neighborhood. Shanks chose this site deliberately, having been the location of a deadly shooting earlier this year.
“After the shooting…took place, I was awakened at three o’clock in the morning, and the words that were in my ears were ‘Sound the Alarm,’” Shanks said.
The mass shooting incident in the neighborhood claimed the lives of three young adults. Furthermore, the suspects connected to the shooting were teenagers as well—two were 16, one 17, and another 18.
“[The shooting] was like a pain in my heart,” Shanks said. “[To] know that even though I’ve been working to prevent generations of incarceration for the longest time, it was [like], ‘But I have been?’”
According to FailSafe’s website, the shooting, as well as an uptick in assaults, trafficking, and use-of-force situations among young people, urged Shanks to use her organization to protect and prevent local children from entering into this cycle of violence.
Also at the forefront are her personal experiences with incarcerated youth. In 2009, Shanks started FailSafe as a way to support her son, who was sentenced to three years in prison on drug charges. She found there were no area organizations available to provide aid either to her family or any others.
So Shanks established her own organization to provide support to families impacted by incarceration and to aid individuals reentering into society. FailSafe also has programs that aim to prevent cycles of imprisonment.
Sounding the Alarm is another way to continue to be the support she and her son lacked in the past.
“Anytime a tragedy…happens, I’m always thinking about my son,” Shanks said. “I always think about all that he went through…I can’t imagine finding my son lying on the ground.”
Shanks reached out to various community members, as well as law enforcement, the school board, and faith institutions to help with her latest initiative. These community members will form crisis response teams, which the police will contact in case of another shooting.
The response teams will also activate a prayer team, which will go to the scene of the incident to hold a prayer walk.
The August 9 event at Olde Greenwich will include a prayer walk, with the goal of healing the trauma of those involved and engaging the youth in endeavors that won’t lead to violence.
Shanks stated that numerous community resources will be present at the event, including a bounce house for children, a food truck, and free haircuts. Additionally, another organization will be handing out clothing, and FailSafe plans to collect backpacks and school supplies for the families.
Shanks also intends to have a resource for conflict resolution and self-defense.
“That shooting…traumatized a lot of people,” Shanks stated. “And what happens in communities a lot of times is there’s so much trauma…but nobody pays attention…so it just keeps building until you turn the community into almost a war zone. We need to change the lenses of what people are seeing… We need to support. We need to teach them conflict resolution.”
According to Shanks, the goal is to get the Olde Greenwich community—and if needed, other community areas—to a point where residents feel safe and are receiving the necessary support.
Once initial outreach events are completed, Shanks hopes to have a base of operations in each jurisdiction in Planning District 16—which includes Fredericksburg City and the counties of Stafford, Spotsylvania, Caroline, and King George.
This way, those impacted by violence, especially the youth, will have a source of support and aid to prevent them from returning to a pattern of violence, Shanks said.
“I think Sounding the Alarm is a sounding of a trumpet,” she said. “It’s a cry for me. It’s a cry of a burdened heart.”