Dakarai Baldwin was a victim of a triple shooting in Baltimore.
After his death, his mother, Ebony McClenny, made it her mission to change the lives of other kids so they don’t go down a bad path, something she says she wishes she had done for her son.
“My son was 17, and he was shot and killed in Baltimore in 2022. So it led me to want to start a nonprofit [where] I work with youth and young adults in the city. Just trying to help them overcome adversity that they face on a daily basis,” says Ebony McClenny.
She created Surviving Our Neighborhoods or S.O.N.
The purpose is to shape the lives of young kids and help them cope with traumatic experiences they may have in life.
Darren Rogers says adults need to realize how the violence in the city is affecting the youth.
He says most people have not experienced what young people are dealing with today.
“They’ve never been in schools where you know guns are prevalent. They’ve never experienced the death of individuals on a consistent basis, where it wasn’t even room to breathe,” says Darren Rogers.