NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) — ‘From a Mother’s Perspective’ is a special approach to address gun violence on the Peninsula.
“What we want to do is create the platform for them to be able to come and speak, but also create a healing environment so that they have other women that they know have been through the same situation that they can call and lean on,” said Deana Millin, founder of Second Chance Solutions. “I just thought, what if it was me that had to tell this story about my own son.”
The nonprofit organization works with “returning citizens.”
“We offer resources, employment and just guidance to transition back to life. I was incarcerated myself,” Millin said. “That’s something that’s near and dear to my heart. Showing people that, just because you messed up does not mean that you cannot be successful later on.”
Millin follows the motto “choose to be better.”
“You can choose to become what you want to be, who you want to be, what you’re going to do,” Millin said. “It’s all the choice. Everything is a choice.”
A decade after losing a loved one, Millin decided to give grieving mothers a place to share their story.
“I lost someone near and dear to me [about] 10 years now,” Millin said. “His name was Ricky Platt. He had had some troubles at home. Mom said she couldn’t deal with it. He moved in with me. As soon as he moved back in with his mother, maybe two weeks later, he was murdered.”
“I’m choking up because it still hurts tremendously, because Ricky was not one of those children that was ‘in the streets.’ He just lost his way, like most teenagers do, got caught up and now he’s no longer here.”
Nikki Ridley, a longtime community advocate with Bags 4 Da Kidz, joined her with what they call a “heels on the ground” effort after losing three kids she was close with.
“The first child that I lost — Hector Martinez Jr., he was my neighbor,” Ridley said. “I spiraled out of control. So, I can’t even imagine what his mother, Shawnte, was going through.”
“It is heartbreaking. It’s a grieving process. When I watch graduations, I cry because I say ‘They couldn’t walk across the stage.’ Kameron Grant couldn’t walk across the stage. Kamari Mitchell couldn’t walk across the stage. Fortunately, Hector Martinez Jr. was able to walk across the stage, but right after that, his life was cut down by gunfire.”
Ridley worries about the mental health aspect for the families.
“They don’t know how to handle the pain that they are experiencing,” Ridley said. “It is heartbreaking to see mothers speak out on it because you carry a baby for typically for nine months. Then for somebody to just walk up point at a gun, shoot it and take their life is just the most heartbreaking thing you ever want to hear mother speak about.”
On Monday, the organizers held a moment of silence for Nasir Mosley, whose life was cut short last Tuesday on Atlantic Avenue.
“It was like getting punched in the chest all over again,” said Ridley.
Mosley’s family was planning to join the Stop the Violence Softball game Saturday.
“His mother was going to be a caterer … and she lost her son a few days ago. Tonight’s event is going to be dedicated to Nasir Mosley. May he rest in peace,” Ridley said. “She supports a lot of different events. She’s community minded as well. She said, ‘they left my son out there to die like he was nothing.’ That just broke my heart into tiny pieces. We had never met the young man. But just knowing who his mother was, it was it was hurtful.”
Mosley’s family was invited to the event, yet they are struggling through their healing journey. Now this group hopes no other mother’s feel this pain.
“These people don’t realize is that it’s a domino effect,” Ridley said. “You hurt one person and it trickles down. The community is our family. When we hurt when they hurt. We hurt when they hurt.”
The hope is to get answers.
“I want the community to chime in to tell us what we can do as a community to stop this,” Millin said. “The more people that we have that can give us ideas about what we can do to stop it, the better.”
The next ‘From a Mothers Perspective’ will likely be in Hampton in September.
Several anti-violence organizations, including Bags 4 Da Kidz, Second Chance Solutions, Hampton Youth Opportunities, Inner City Innovations Foundation, and Ketchmore Kids are participating in ‘5 days for 5 ways’ campaign to avoid gun violence. This initiative is leading up to the weekend event Friday and Saturday.