Joplin Wear Orange event to promote efforts to end gun violence

A local group has planned a day of family activities to encourage public participation in finding a solution to gun violence. Joplin Wear Orange day, hosted by Moms Demand Action, will take place from 2 and 4 p.m. today at Parr Hill Park, located at 18th Street and Kansas Avenue. Activities will include music, an ice cream cart offered by Caroline’s, water balloons, rock painting, face painting and balloon animals. Attendees are encouraged to wear orange in support of the movement. "With everything going on, Americans are starting to see that gun violence is becoming a problem in our country, and (this event) will give people the opportunity to stand up and speak out," said Amanda Dickerson, the volunteer group leader for the local Moms Demand Action chapter. The national Wear Orange initiative was created in 2013 when a group of teens at a Chicago high school asked their classmates to honor the life of their murdered friend, 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, by wearing orange, the color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves. They inspired the Wear Orange campaign, a coalition of more than 200 nonprofits and elected officials working to reduce gun violence in America. The nationwide Wear Orange events are scheduled less than four months after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, left 17 people dead, and just two weeks after a shooting at Santa Fe (Texas) High School left 10 people dead. In the aftermath of such recent school shootings, […]

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