Not One More: A Peace and Justice Project has been selected as a 2024 Love & Light honoree by the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The Love & Light Recognition Tour spotlights individuals and organizations that exemplify love, light and upliftment in the community. Not One More was selected for its commitment to the Berks County community.

The Love & Light Recognition Ceremony was held on May 1 in Philadelphia. Ebonie Cunningham Stringer, associate professor of criminal justice at Penn State Berks and executive director of Not One More, received the award on behalf of the program.

The mission of the Not One More program is to help eradicate violence in the city of Reading. In 2023, Penn State Berks was awarded a $1.62 million grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to establish a youth violence intervention and prevention program, a new initiative that will employ evidence-based strategies to serve youths ages 14 to 21 in Berks County. In addition to establishing the program, objectives of the grant include working with community partners to identify youths who are at risk of committing violence, as well as violence interrupters, called peacemakers. The multi-year grant will run through 2025. 

Stringer is the principal investigator on the grant along with co-investigator Laurie Grobman, distinguished professor of English and women's studies.

Not One More: A Peace and Justice Project was created to facilitate work on the grant and beyond. Stringer and Grobman are working in collaboration with Edna Garcia-DiPini, executive director of RIZE Above Bars, a nonprofit youth organization in Berks County. Stringer serves as the executive director of Not One More; Garcia-DiPini is director of programs, and Grobman is director of special projects and story project facilitator.

Not One More facilitates the newly formed Berks Youth Anti-Violence Coalition, a collaborative working group consisting of youth-serving community organizations, faith communities, schools, community leaders, and government-sponsored agencies that work to eradicate violence in Berks County. The coalition's mission is to reduce the duplication of services, address gaps in services to youths, promote information sharing and connect youths to community resources from which they may benefit, all in an effort to help create a community in which all youths can live, flourish, and develop to their full potential without fear of violence.   

Specific project goals for the grant include reducing violent crime and gun violence among people ages 14 to 21; developing and monitoring violence prevention plans for 40 youths at risk of violence; changing community norms about violence through education, training, the arts, and nonviolent messaging; empowering residents and youths who have committed or been impacted by violence to share responsibility for reducing violence; and facilitating the Berks Youth Anti-Violence Coalition.

Stringer said she is motivated by the desire to continue to refine evidence-based models that other cities can use to eradicate violence. Her program uses the evidence-based Cure Violence model, which takes a public health approach to eradicating violence by detecting and de-escalating conflict before violence erupts, targeting and providing treatment services to youths who are at the highest risk of violence as victims or perpetrators, and changing community norms that promote violence.

Stringer is also interested in getting religious and civic organizations, as well as businesses, invested in the fight against community violence.

Grobman has taken on the primary role of collecting and sharing the community's stories about violence. She believes that people need to hear stories about how violence impacts members of the community in both direct and indirect ways; sharing stories may inspire fellow community members to join efforts to stop violence. She said she hopes storytelling will also help individuals better understand their experiences and the power of their voices.

For more information, contact Stringer at 610-396-6018 or at ECS296@psu.edu.