The city of Lexington is on track to experience the lowest number of shootings and a decade.

One Lexington anti-violence plan, called All Hearts on Deck, is credited with decreasing gun violence in the city by 60% since 2022.

But with 17 homicides in the city so far this year, the director of one Lexington says the city needs all hands on deck.

He put out that call to action Thursday at a symposium on youth and young adult gun violence.

Are all hands on deck.

Strategy is the reason that we've seen so much progress as far as gun violence, and so we want to continue moving in that spirit of all of us coming together.

And that's what today is about.

It is a community led to a change in class.

You this is your plan.

All of these community partners that are here are the ones that helped us create our strategic plan.

And so now we want them to be a part of the process of implementing it.

Seeing what the community is doing to prevent gun violence is interesting because we all do it in a different kind of way, but we also have the same purpose, and that I take away to seeing what everybody is doing at their level.

I want them to see themselves in this plan right.

It's one thing to use your expertise and say, we need to do this, we should do that.

But how do you see yourself fitting into that larger puzzle?

Right?

What piece do you specifically play and represent?

And so that's kind of what we want to we want them to envision themselves as actually doing the work as well.

I have my own nonprofit, and with Exhilarating Ink, I wrote a grant to one Lexington to do, teach teens and older adults how to transition into adulthood.

We're teaching them skills, and we know that a lot of times when people are involved with violence, it's because they lack some skills.

They don't have jobs, so they find ways to survive.

They don't have housing, so they find ways to survive.

So if we can teach you something to help you survive and stay off the streets, then we feel like we're doing something.

You know, we have seen in Frankfort in our work with substance use that, you know, it sometimes is three steps forward, two steps back.

We have really admired the way that one Lexington has approached, this problem of gun violence among youth and young adults.

And have really seen it as a testament to the importance of, utilizing and sharing data with the community of, investing in, preventative approaches and in really making the solutions to these problems that that seem really intractable.

A whole community effort.

We really believe, in Frankfort in our work, that's the only way to tackle these kinds of issues.

And we've, seem to be seeing the same spirit and energy here in Lexington.

So we're just really very inspired and here to learn we can't become content.

Just because we're seeing progress doesn't mean we just stop.

But how do we keep that progress going?

We got to continue to adjust as new things change in our community.

So I think coming out of today, we'll know exactly what we need moving forward.

And then I'll just get in the war room and start analyzing things and, and continue this downward trend.

Some of the ways one Lexington wants to make the city safer, making community centers more accessible and providing more mentoring and free tutoring for students.