DALLAS — As Trisha Allen starts the New Year, she’s praying for something so simple.
“I'm hoping for less violence,” she said.
But she worries that 2020 could be too much like 2019, a year that Dallas recovered over 200 homicides for the first time in more than a decade.
“This is not normal that we wake up and see another person being killed,” said Allen, founder of No More Violence, a nonprofit group that works with the families of those lost to violence.
She began her New Year by taking to Facebook to talk about the group’s efforts to reduce crime in the community.
On Facebook Live, she was joined by her group’s co-founder, April Richardson.
Richardson lost her 12-year-old son, Deonte, in 2011 just days before his birthday. He was walking across an apartment complex in DeSoto when a teenager racing a car from a street fight ran over him. He died from massive head injuries.
She now works through her own grief helping others.
“When I see the grief on another mother’s face, I pick up her grief,” Richardson said. “I’m not just grieving for Deonte. I’m grieving for all the children.”
Deonte’s death led Richardson and Allen to found the group.
“That's a memory that I can't get out of my head and that keeps me going,” Allen told WFAA.
The women are pushing forward in the New Year.
They’re looking for a building. They’re expanding their volunteer efforts. They also announced their next youth convention will be in Dallas this summer.
“We all have to get together to save these babies,” Richardson said. “It was my baby in 2011 but it could be yours tomorrow.”
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