Advancing Education-Reducing Crime Day offers books, haircuts, meals, giveaways

YOUNGSTOWN

Academic institutions across the city united in a simultaneous effort to showcase the importance of literacy and to make a public stand against crime.

Youngstown’s Citywide Advancing Education-Reducing Crime Day took place from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday.

The event was put together by community activists’ Jon Howell and his wife, Adrienne, in collaboration with the Youngstown City District. In 2016, the Howells spearheaded Operation Paint Brush, which provided four low-income family homes, located on each side of the city, to be repainted.

Jon said the goal of this event was to raise the quality of education, with emphasis on reading and writing, while uniting as a community to speak out against crime.

“We believe that if a child can read and write at a high level, they can learn any job and excel at it,” he explained, “But if they cannot read and write, they are doomed, because you’ve got to be able to read and write to do anything in life as far as advancement.”

To encompass the entire city, sites were set up at these schools on each side of town. Free transportation to the sites was provided by the Western Reserve Transit Authority, and each site featured the same activities and public services., including morning and afternoon writing contests, free haircuts, demonstrations from the Youngstown Police Department’s K-9 Unit, storytelling, Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County’s Pop-Up Library and live entertainment, and local celebrities reading books to the students.

Read more about the event in Sunday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.