On Saturday, the Endall Movement held its fourth annual Thanksgiving Community Meal to raise awareness and help bring an end to gun violence.
“To see everybody come together for such a tragic situation and turn into something positive is powerful,” Lindsey Martin said. Martin founded the Endall Movement and organized the annual meal after losing her fiancé, Kendall Cook, to gun violence in 2021.
Hundreds of people attended Saturday. Volunteers helped by serving food and making sure no one had an empty plate, all while listening to the bumping beats of DJ Jimmy “KJ” Rodriguez.
The event provided an outlet for the community to get together and reflect upon the issue. Families who have been affected by gun violence celebrated their loved ones by placing photos of them on a tribute table. Around the venue was the Memorial to the Lost: T shirts with the names and dates of death of gun violence victims.
Organizations such as SWAN: Scaling Walls a Note at a Time, Bumbada Women Drummers, RAWtools Philadelphia, and Be SMART came out to entertain and educate.
Janice Nikoloff is a representative from the Be SMART organization, which advocates for safe gun storage.
“It’s a way not to get in a big debate about owning a gun,” she said. "It’s about if you own a gun, lock it up, because kids or teens could get it and hurt themselves or others.”
Raw Tools turns guns into garden tools as a way to promote peace and healing. Shane Claiborne, who heads the organization's Philadelphia chapter, set up a mobile forge in the Crispus Attucks parking lot.
“This is why we do what we do,” he said, “to honor the pain and the trauma of folks who have been affected by gun violence, but also channel that pain in change.
“What we do is a declaration that things can be made brand new, things can be different, metal can be recrafted. People that have done violence are more than the worst thing they’ve done. Hearts can change.”
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