Today is National Gun Violence Awareness Day and the township has issued a proclamation asking residents to work to reduce gun violence, keep firearms out of the wrong hands, and encourage responsible gun ownership to keep our children safe.
National Gun Violence Awareness Day was created by several national organizations that had been inspired by friends of Hadiya Pendleton, a Chicago teenager who had marched in President Barack Obama’s second inaugural parade and was shot and killed just weeks later. They had asked their classmates to commemorate Pendleton’s life by wearing orange, a color that to them symbolized the value of human life because it is the color that hunters wear when out in the woods to keep themselves safe from other hunters.
Verona’s proclamation asks Verona residents to wear orange too today. “I encourage all citizens to support their local communities’ efforts to prevent the tragic effects of gun violence,” Mayor Jack McEvoy said in today’s proclamation, “and to honor and value human lives.”
