Peace Over Everything

Summer of Hope

Challenge:

In September of 2020, the City of Baton Rouge established Safe Hopeful Healthy (SHH) to revitalize and empower the community. A crucial part of their mission is to reduce violence and crime within the city.

In the summer of 2023, our team was challenged to lead a SHH campaign that would deliver data on the topics of crime while starting a chain reaction of city-wide hope and peace.

Solution

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Summer of Hope is a SHH community-led initiative focused on peace, joy, and opportunity. By leveraging community organizations and events, Summer of Hope aims to impact the neighborhoods, streets, and families that have experienced violence. For the 2023 installation of the 15 week event series, we focused on the overarching theme, Peace Over Everything.

In order to execute 15 weeks of pop-up events, our team created a network of Summer of Hope ambassadors. We organized, trained, and managed the ambassadors who worked over 517 hours of “Peace Pit Stop” pop-ups from May to September. The Peace Pit Stop activation experience was modeled after a neighborhood corner store or “bodega.” When visiting the store, guests were incentivized to complete surveys or video questionnaires in exchange for Peace Over Everything merchandise. These surveys acted as topic touch points and provided the City of Baton Rouge with data directly relating to the public opinion of crime.

Impact:

During Summer of Hope, 51 community events featured the POE Peace Pit Stop which engaged over 2,887 people. The survey and questionnaire results showed the majority of respondents felt safe in their neighborhoods, 61% were proud to be from Baton Rouge, and most agreed leaders should invest in crime prevention. The Summer of Hope ambassador program provided summer jobs and leadership development opportunities for youth and Baton Rouge locals. Crime and violence across the city was impacted as a result of Peace Over Everything efforts. From July 27th to August 26th there were 31 consecutive days with no homicides. This is the longest period with no homicides since 2017. Additionally, August had 15 gun violence incidents which is the fewest incidents in a single month since 2019. 

Through the SHH initiative, events like Summer of Hope are used to gather data that helps inform public policy and programming. Click here to learn more about the impact of SHH in Baton Rouge.