Akron community comes together for healing

The Akron community continues to come together and help each other heal from the mass shooting that occurred last Sunday.

News 5 previously reported the shooting left one man dead and 26 others injured.

Angelo Anderson is a professional counselor from Minority Health Group; the group partnered with multiple organizations to support those impacted by the shooting.

"It just saddens me that these things have taken place here in this city, but it puts a passion and a light of fire under me to want to try to do something about it," said Anderson.

East Akron Neighborhood Development Corporation hosted the gathering; organizations created a safe space for the community to share their thoughts, feelings and ideas as they try to cope with the traumatic incident.

"I'm frustrated and very angry because just there's no reason for any of this," said Aaron Bloodworth.

Bloodworth spends a lot of time with family and friends who live in the area where the shooting occurred. He said Eastside Akron is known as one big family, and like many others, he's trying to figure out how an incident like that could occur close to home.

It doesn't make any sense; there was no issue there going on for hours. Everything was fine; no type of problem. Then somebody takes it upon themselves to cause trauma for all these people, for an issue that can't be that deep for you to impact a whole community," said Bloodworth.

During the meeting, the community shared their concerns about gun violence getting worse in Akron. Anderson said the issues behind the violence are layered on top of one another.

"When you have poverty, poor education, lack of employment and no resources, with oppression, it makes a huge impact upon why the negative mindset continues to proceed. It makes it tough for a young person to be able to navigate through this world," said Anderson.

Bloodworth said that almost everyone in the room felt helpless and unclear about where to start as they spent hours searching for a solution to the problem.

"We all want to do something, but we don't necessarily know what it is to do, but we all recognize that there's something wrong," said Bloodworth.

Anderson said it starts with educating the youth.

"I think the main key is that we must get the young people to come to these meetings, but maybe we not even do that. Maybe we need to go to where the young people are, and we need to find a way to invite them to circles like this, but at the same time, go to where they are and have conversations," said Anderson.

Anderson and Bloodworth said Saturday's meeting was a good start, but the city has a long way to go.

"It's going to be hard, it's going to be a lot of work, it's going to be a lot of pushback, and it's going to be it's going to be a challenge, but I don't think that it's something that we can't come back from. I think it's just going to be a matter of the time and people coming together on one accord," said Bloodworth.