Graduation day for Chicago CRED participants, many of them gun violence survivors
CHICAGO (CBS) -- An extra-special and emotional high school graduation ceremony was held Thursday in South Shore.
A total of 86 Chicago CRED participants earned their diplomas at the ceremony. For years, the CBS 2 Investigators have been tracking the impact of violence prevention groups like Chicago CRED.
As CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey reported, there were plenty of tears at the ceremony — both happy and sad — as many of the graduates are survivors of gun violence.
But they say they're proof that those closest to the problem are actually the solution.
The drive-through graduation ceremony was a pandemic holdover – and one that allows these the graduates, who were recruited because they were most at risk of shooting or being shot, to celebrate with their whole support network.
Leneaha Gist, 27, rode through with her mom and stepfather.
She never thought she'd be holding a high school diploma. But she also didn't think she'd be here at all after being shot 11 times last February.
"I was just sitting in the car, like at the wrong place wrong time. My whole left side," Gist said. "I wasn't really planning on going back to school, but this program helping me do everything I needed to do."
For other families, like the family of 28-year-old Ronnie Roper, it was an even harder walk across the stage. Roper finished his credits, but was killed in May while leaving a CRED outreach center.
"That's the tragic reality of our work – but to see them overcome that to stay positive; keep working on this," said Chicago CRED managing partner Arne Duncan.
Duncan, a former Chicago Public Schools chief executive officer and U.S. educations secretary, told Hickey he is proud of the impact Chicago CRED has made so far.
A 2021 Northwestern study found that the number of fatal and non-fatal gunshot injuries across all CRED participants decreased by nearly 50 percent in the 18 months after starting the program.
Duncan says the focus now is broadening their reach.
"So if we're serving a couple hundred in every neighborhood, that's good," Duncan said. "But that's nowhere near critical mass. We have to start to get to 6, 7, 800."
Gist said she is going to college this year. She wants to study to become a public defender.
With the ceremony Thursday, 322 CRED participants have now earned high school diplomas.
