Sam Sutton walked slow and steady along Brambleton Avenue Saturday morning, part of a crowd of nearly 100.
“I know my leg’s not good, but I come out here anyway,” Sutton said.
He was committed to finishing the whole of the Victory Over Violence 2K walk, an effort to raise awareness of community issues and ongoing efforts to stop violence that’s plagued the Young Terrace public housing neighborhood.
Sutton, who would identify himself only as “seventy-something” years old, has lived in Young Terrace for 40 years.
There have been times he didn’t feel safe where he lived.
“There’s been a lot of shooting and stuff going around,” Sutton said as he kept pace with the pack of around 100 participating in the walk.
The walk was organized by antiviolence group Community First, that was formed by two other violence prevention groups to put visible violence intervention staff on the ground in Norfolk.
For the last three months, Community First has placed people in Young Terrace — identifiable by their distinctive blue vests —- keeping watch and working to make residents feel safer. It’s part of a year-long pilot program sponsored by the City of Norfolk.
The group’s members provide a physical presence in the community, particularly for the youth, watching over playgrounds and routes to schools.
Clay Marquez heads Guns Down, one of the groups that came together to make up Community First.
“We’re losing so many lives to gun violence, so many young people. It’s an epidemic,” Marquez said.
Violence has dropped in the city since the heights it hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the overwhelming majority of the city’s 42 homicide victims in 2023 were shot to death. Many of them are heavily concentrated in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, with Young Terrace among the hardest hit.
He said Community First has been welcome with open arms in the community, and they’ve seen some change already.
Administrators at the local elementary school, PB Young, were able to hold a field day for the students outside for the first time in three years because Community First volunteers showed up to walk the perimeter.
“This community’s been plagued with a lot of violence, but there’s a lot of good that’s going on in this community,” Marquez said. “We’re just trying to keep progressing forward and doing positive things out here.”
Councilwoman Danica Royster, who is one of two council members who represents the area, said gun violence is a public health emergency disproportionately impacting Norfolk’s Black communities. She said it’ll take buy-in from everyone — the city, the community, organizations — to address the problem.
“It’s important that people feel safe where they live. We’re hoping this event doesn’t just kickstart things, but now people will have a sense of community that they can identify that person in the blue vest as someone who can come to my house and look out for me,” Royster said.
Community First partnered with another group, Seniors Aging Gracefully, to host Saturday’s walk because Community First has heard concerns specifically from seniors living in Young Terrace.
Some were afraid to walk to the grocery store and would take the long way around or go to a convenience store instead to do their shopping. Community First stepped in and now provides escorts for seniors when they need to buy groceries.
“The seniors…a lot of times they’re the ones that’s forgotten, so we wanted to do something that we could all chip in and be a part of the process of rebuilding the community,” said Anthony Clary, who runs the nonprofit Reck League, the other half of Community First.
Sam Sutton, still marching on his bad leg, said he appreciates what Community First is trying to do in his home.
“(They want to) protect the community,” he said. “(There’s) so much going on.”
