TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — Shortly after the Uvalde, Texas shooting where 21 people were killed, Emily Bruno decided that she wanted to be a part of creating change.
"Shooting after shooting, to see the way that it's here in our own community impacting people," Bruno of Guns to Gardens said.
Guns to Gardens is a national grass roots movement that started in Colorado Springs and will now be making its way to the Big Bend.
"It's such a powerfully symbolic and prophetic thing to take a gun and to literally beat it down and turn it into something new," said Bruno.
Bruno is on the leadership team for Guns to Gardens. She says the process has already begun and her and her team have completed training and are equipped on how to safely dismantle guns. Now, Bruno is looking to put those skills to work.
According to the Tallahassee Police Department, Tallahassee had over 190 shootings in 2022. Over 70 resulted in injuries. The Good Shepherd Catholic Church is now hosting a gun violence forum to help come up with more solutions like the Guns to Gardens initiative.
"We are blessed with a great lineup of people to share what their organization are doing to try and reduce gun violence," said Laura Ruane, Committee Member for Gun Violence Forum.
Ruane says the church wants to do more than pray to put an end to violence once and for all.
"We want all of us to think about what we can do and perhaps that means being a mentor to a young person, it might mean writing to a legislator, it might mean organizing some other meeting," said Ruane.
