Zarinah Lomax’s friend, 23-year-old Penn State student Dominique Oglesby, was shot and killed in West Philadelphia weeks before she was set to graduate nearly seven years ago. The killing received plenty of media coverage, but Lomax felt it never truly reflected what was lost. That feeling inspired her to create a platform that uses fashion, music and art to celebrate Ogleby’s life and further humanize victims of gun violence. Now, The Apologues is part of Philadelphia’s landscape of organizations outside law enforcement that are devoted to addressing the crisis.
The Apologues’ art experiences allow people to share the stories of their loved ones. “We create portraits, host art therapy workshops, connect folks to mental resources, and will soon offer mentorships,” Lomax says. State and city grants, which are often funded by federal grants, have played an integral part in The Apologues’ recent expansion, covering the cost of additional mental health resources, art therapy workshops, and space for an art institute that is scheduled to open in June.
[This story was originally published by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. Sign up for its newsletters here.]
Grants have similarly fueled the growth of Philadelphia’s violence prevention sector, which officials say has been instrumental to the city’s decline in homicides and shootings. But now, organizers are worried about President Donald Trump’s promises to slash federal funding across the board, even as Mayor Cherelle Parker’s budget proposal seeks to limit the fallout from those potential cuts.
To get ahead of any future threats to funding, gun violence prevention leaders are banding together and pursuing alternative ways to generate revenue. Many have initiated cost-cutting measures. For her part, Lomax is considering another model.
“We’re looking into opening up a store that’s more like an arts and flower shop and include other types of programming that will stay in the realm of what I already do, but making it more on the for-profit side,” Lomax says. She hopes that this and other changes will help make The Apologues sustainable.
“I don’t think that a lot of the people who are out here doing great work around gun violence prevention will last if funding dries up.” — Garry Mills, Shoot Basketballs NOT People
In an effort to understand how Philadelphia’s gun violence prevention sector is preparing for potential cuts, The Trace spoke to three additional community leaders. These are their perspectives. These conversations have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Shoot Basketballs NOT People
Garry Mills, founder and executive director
Shoot Basketballs Not People uses the sport to give students an outlet and a space to heal and develop conflict resolution and other life skills. Since 2013, it has served 2,500 students in its Germantown hub.
Our mission is to use basketball as a vehicle to change and save lives. The demographic that we serve is youth ages 8 to 16, co-ed, of course, primarily in the Northwest section of Philadelphia. We may be headed for some tough times when it comes to programming. So, we’ve been coming up with strategic ways to diversify where we’re going with our funding. For instance, how do we get more reach nationally? How do we get the attention of more NBA players? How do we get the attention of a larger donor base to keep us sustainable?
I didn’t get my first grant until two years ago. The first 10 years of running this nonprofit, I was funding the program out of pocket. A lot of what we do now is predicated on grants until we can develop a sufficient donor base that can create sustainability for us. With the White House closing down the National Office of Gun Violence Prevention, that trickles down into the state, which trickles down into the counties.
Our visibility in the neighborhood and the documentary Bad Things Happen in Philadelphia gave us a lot more credibility, and then the partnerships with the Philadelphia Eagles and the 76ers came along, and the City of Philadelphia is now jumping behind us. I don’t think that a lot of the people who are out here doing great work around gun violence prevention will last if funding dries up. There’s no way to have gun violence reduction without funding for preventative services.
Beyond The Bars Music
Matthew Kerr, co-executive director
Beyond the Bars is dedicated to creating accessible music spaces wherever young people are. Youth can learn how to make music, grow as instrumentalists, producers, engineers, and songwriters, and be connected to a community of support.
We began back in 2015 as a music program for youth who are incarcerated and tried as adults. Everything we do is through the leadership of our youth and community. We’re grateful for how supportive the city and state has been. Grants like the Community Expansion Grant and Targeted Community Investment Grants have allowed for capacity building. We went from eight music labs to 55 across the City of Philadelphia. Our labs are in locations like youth shelters, trauma clinics, schools, community hubs, rec centers; really, wherever young people are. The organization was run by all volunteers for about five years. Eventually, we were able to get some foundational funding that broke us into the game. Today a large portion of our budget comes from state and city funding.
“We are in survival mode where we have to strive and thrive for ourselves. You know if we have a penny we’ll put another penny together and make a dime.” — Sajda Purple Blackwell, Blackwell Cultural Alliance
We have a pretty diversified revenue stream, but it needs to be way more now and we’re looking for different ways to do that. We were originally going to make a few full-time hires, but we then had to pause. What’s most important is to adapt to whatever the funding landscape is to make sure that young people are still getting resources and access to a larger community that has their back. Funding helps us meet our goals, and we also have great partners that help us, too. We’re seeing positive things, like the decline of shootings, but the positive things exist because of investment into our communities and our young people. But it can’t be a one-time investment. It needs to be ongoing.
Blackwell Cultural Alliance
Sajda Purple Blackwell, co-founder
Blackwell Cultural Alliance hosts a monthly open mic and cash competition called “Music Against Gun Violence,” and a healing circle in West Philadelphia. The Trace partnered with Blackwell to co-host the competition in December 2023.
In the last four years, we’ve been part of that direct drop in gun violence. We directly work with the youth in the age bracket who are dying every day, and we decided to come up with a creative way to battle violence with positive music.
“We’re seeing positive things, like the decline of shootings, but the positive things exist because of investment into our communities and our young people. But it can’t be a one-time investment. It needs to be ongoing.” — Matthew Kerr, Beyond The Bars Music
We started out self funding these competitions simply because of our love for our people, and now we pay young people $1,500 a month. We’ve reached out to philanthropists for funding, as well as the state, because the state of Pennsylvania has been so aggressive about their mission to reduce gun violence. Our program has scaled up so much that it would be very hard to self fund. So we will definitely try to continue to find other ways, other philanthropic groups, other like-minded groups, to partner with us.
We understand the control and impact of politics. A reduction in gun violence prevention funds will make the fight harder. However, we struggled with gun violence when Ronald Reagan was in office and we had to fight our own fight. We struggled with gun violence when George Bush was in office, and we had to save our own people and fight our own fight. We struggled with gun violence when Barack Obama was in office, and we had to fight our own fight. So now again, with Trump, another problematic leader, we are going to hunker down once again and take care of our own people. We are in survival mode where we have to strive and thrive for ourselves. You know if we have a penny we’ll put another penny together and make a dime.
Afea Tucker has a deep love for her city and its diverse communities. She oversees Up the Block, a resource and information hub for Philadelphians who have been affected by gun violence. Before joining The Trace, Afea was a veteran media professional and freelance journalist whose work had been published by The Philadelphia Tribune, WHYY, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other news organizations.
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