Last night I had the opportunity to join many others from the community during a candlelight vigil at a local school. Just five blocks from where I live is New Orleans College Prep. It's only four years old and is doing great things to impact the students of this neighborhood. However, in the last seven months there have been 3 murders just outside the school.

The most recent shootings happened right outside the cafeteria just five minutes before the entire elementary school (currently K-3) entered for lunch. Several members of Castle Rock met with the principal of that school Tuesday night to begin to plan for the involvement we can have with the school to support what they are doing educationally.

He said several teachers are concerned when walking to their cars or coming to work. Parents are nervous and so are some of the students. That's all legitimate. So last night, city leaders, one of our congressmen, religious leaders and community members joined students, teachers and staff to take a stand against the violence. It was great to see how many turned out for the event and I pray that this will be a sign to the neighborhood that we are all together in this fight and a reminder that this behavior won't be tolerated here.

It was such a great reminder of how we really do need to all work together across racial, political and socioeconomic lines to support one another. That's true for anywhere, I suppose, and it's unfortunate that it generally takes a tragic event or disaster to bring us together in such a way. I'd encourage you to see how you can get involved in your community now, so that we can prevent these sorts of things for the future.

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