KEITH MURPHY, Founder of Healthy Village Learning Institute (Photo via Pittsburgh Foundation)
The New Pittsburgh Courier has learned that a McKeesport violence prevention program will receive a $150,000 state grant to help address an uptick in incidents that coincided with the COVID pandemic.
The Healthy Village Learning Institute originally requested $150,000 over two years to support an intensive community outreach process in McKeesport that will train and prepare Violence Intervention Outreach workers to directly engage McKeesport resident members on how to respond to community violence. The program will also identify “hot spots” and will connect directly with individuals at risk of perpetrating violence.
The grant was awarded to the organization, headed by Keith Murphy.
The grant was administered through the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency’s School Safety and Security Committee, was among more than $23 million awarded at the committee’s meeting in Harrisburg today.
State Sen. Jim Brewster, who sits on the committee, congratulated the Healthy Village Learning Institute and several other Allegheny County grant winners for their efforts.
“These grants are highly competitive, and applications far outpace the money available,” Sen. Brewster said. “You have to take your best ideas and turn them into solid plans. They did a great job.”
“I’m proud of this community-based effort to interact with people where they live and where they congregate to prevent conflict from erupting into violence,” Sen. Brewster added. “This boots-on-the-ground approach takes time and hard work but it’s an important complement to wider efforts in the region.”
Last year, Sen. Brewster worked with colleagues in the Senate and House Democratic Leadership and the Wolf Administration to appropriate $30 million in the 2021-2022 state budget to stem the surge in violence across the state. By December, nearly $23 million of state funds were awarded to community groups and municipalities across the state to combat the increase in gun violence, but applications outstripped the appropriated funds by a ratio of 7-1.
“There’s more work to be done and we’d like to see a continued commitment to local efforts where the programs know their communities and respond to their unique circumstances,” Sen. Brewster said.
Part of the grant money will be used to support the training costs of the part-time Outreach Workers and Violence Specialists/Interrupters; several consultants, including a Program Coordinator, two part-time Summer Violence Prevention Specialists/Interrupters; as well as supplies to support their work, including laptops and cell phones.
The Healthy Village Learning Institute focuses on teaching African history and cultural values before the history of slavery and provides a science, technology, research, engineering, arts and math (STREAM) education program. The organization said it looks at land, history and culture in teaching those in the community and what it means to be an American African, meaning defining one’s identity through their relationship to African land, history and culture before the American qualities that have been forced upon us. Studying the past also means educating for the future, and the institute provides many educational programs to get kids ready to be college-bound.
Murphy began the Healthy Village Learning Institute in 2012 to much fanfare, which continues today.
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