The first day of school his sophomore year, Michael Richardson got a phone call.

“My cousin passed away from gun violence,” the 17-year-old Ruskin High School graduate said. And in that moment he was thinking of how he and his older brothers always hung out with his cousin in Michael’s grandmother’s basement playing games or outside playing basketball. “It was always fun,” he said. “Nice to seem him.”

He’d been killed, Michael learned, by one of his close friends over a girl.

LINC believes youth like Michael can be the leaders in helping young people in Kansas City turn to peaceful, restorative action to reduce the violence that too many of them have seen close hand.

“There’s vaping, gun violence,” 14-year-old Grandview High School freshman Marvell Akins said. “People are pointing guns at other people, holding knives up, cutting people, fighting.”

Marvell and Michael were two of a group of youth LINC sent to the Kansas City Youth Ambassadors’ 4th Annual Teen Peace Summit July 19 at the Mohart Multipurpose Center.

"All of that doesn’t make sense,” Marvell said about the violence on youths’ minds. “Because why are you doing that? You’re a kid.”

Groups of youths from across the city converged on the summit to share their experiences, learn from each other and to collaborate with youth and adult advocates who are working to end violence.

The experience was encouraging, said Monique Johnston, the executive director of Youth Ambassadors.

“We want our kids to learn the strategies and the tips that they can use in their day-to-day lives to protect themselves and to think about a bigger and better future for their lives,” she said. “We working on conflict resolution, self-regulation and de-escalating violence.”

LINC joined other advocates for peace at the summit, including Lee’s Summit Cares, Kansas City Health Department and police department, MOCSA for victims of sexual assault , Center for Conflict Resolution, Zero Reasons Why teen suicide prevention, Grandparents for Gun Safety, and the Sunflower House child advocacy.

The summit shared youth-made videos, held a youth panel on violence, workshopped ideas and then took to the streets at 31st Street and the Paseo with hand-drawn posters for a peace walk.

It was a good opportunity, said LINC Caring Communities Coordinator Bryan Geddes, to get potential young leaders from LINC’s schools involved in the work.

The youth can “be involved and be around their peers to come up with ideas to help the city,” Geddes said. “And we got into the minds of kids and what they think about youth violence in Kansas City.”

“That’s in our core results,” he said. “We want safety in neighborhoods. We want kids succeeding in life.”

Michael and Marvell as well as many other youth said they will be taking messages back to their schools and neighborhoods.

“Stay in school,” Michael said. “Stay away from gun violence, drug abuse, gangs. Just focus on you and try to stay away from all the negativity that’s going on.”

Said Marvell:  “I’m going to take this to heart and go on the internet and preach about stopping violence and gangs in schools and inform people about the peace that’s needed in the city to stop all this violence . . . because it’s too much.”

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