SARASOTA – The 4th annual stop the violence cookout in Payne Park is hosted by Streets of Paradise. The event addresses different types of violence happening in our communities and how to combat them.
“Everything from institutional violence, police brutality, domestic violence, animal violence, the environment there’s environmental violence so it’s just to raise awareness,” said Greg Cruz.
Cruz founder of Streets of Paradise, a nonprofit group that helps people living on the streets, helped establish stop the violence day four years ago with the help of former Sarasota mayor Willie Shaw. He says he wanted to create an event where families can come together and feel safe in their community.
“A couple of community leaders got together and we tried to brainstorm and figure what we can do to kinda bring our community together and an old school cookout is what we came out with,” said Cruz.
More than 100 people came out in support. Several vendors from different organizations, such as Planned Parenthood, ALSO Youth and the Jabez Spann Foundation shared their stories and solutions to ending the violence plaguing their communities.
“We inform people and then they take that information back into their communities and disperse it, and interact with people with people of their community engage and share what they learn basically,” said Cruz.
Cruz says the cookout helps educate the community but also a time to have fun with the family. “I just want to make people aware that we can all coexist in the same space and have a good time,” he said. “Let’s just come together and have a good time and take that energy back into our communities and keep it going.”
