Community leaders host safe haven for youth hoping to combat ongoing violence

Leaders in northeast Denver hosted a safe haven for youth on Saturday in response to the ongoing violence the community continues to face. 

The Struggle of Love Foundation and its partners gathered near Crown Boulevard and Andrews Drive to provide a space for the community to heal and respond.

One of those who attended the event was Izayah Aggers. Aggers has seen a lot of violence and is tired of it. He says it seems to be getting closer and closer to home.

"It hurts me," Aggers told CBS News Colorado. "Why are we doing this to our own community? We should be teaming up, helping each other out. Seeing it on the news, and on photos and all of that... like Tayanna, my friend who passed last week, I was scared to see that. She was a nice girl, she passed for no reason." 

Aggers and 16-year-old Tayanna Manuel had been friends for about two years. Manuel was found dead Monday morning near Green Valley Ranch and her death is just one of several violent incidents plaguing youth in the area.

"Whenever that happens we lose a part of ourselves, cause they are part of the community," said Jason McBride, a secondary violence prevention specialist with the Struggle of Love Foundation. 

For many in the Montbello and Green Valley Ranch communities, some of this violence becomes numbing.

"We haven't been able to get over the last incident before the next one comes," McBride said. "I think as a community as a whole, we're desensitized to those things, right? And I think anytime things continue to happen, you kind of get used to them, and we kind of got used to youth violence." 

As they gather together in prayer and break bread, community leaders are taking steps to help alleviate the violence by providing a safe haven for youth, so they'll know there is someone to turn to.

"This thing like I said is for the community to come out and kind of heal together, pray together and also find solutions together, because these are issues that we all have to deal with together because these are our children," McBride said. 

McBride and Aggers hope that together they can help transform that violence into something positive.

"I would like for people to start caring more," Aggers said. "We care a lot, we want to help, more organizations want to help too, and I'm pretty sure if yall join, we can slow down on the violence."