This Memorial Day weekend, 17-year-old high school student Kathy Young was shot once in the back by a stray bullet, as she walked through the lobby of her Brooklyn apartment building, at the Nostrand Houses on Avenue X in Sheepshead Bay. Police said that a gunman was aiming at another man when the freshman was hit by a .22-caliber bullet. Listed in stable condition, Young – another innocent bystander – is expected to survive her injury.

The reaction to continued gun vio­lence in the city is gathering momen­tum. Grassroots groups continue their on-the-ground work and politi­cal, community and religious leaders are pushing to get their voices heard.

Using the tag "It's not snitching, it's saving a life," a host of politicos and community activists are conven­ing an "anti-gun violence summit" in Harlem next week. The location, per­haps ironically, is Harlem Hospital Center.

"It's no surprise that youth vio­lence has spiked just as New York City feels the full effect of a historic recession and tries to cope with terri­ble levels of unemployment in our African-American and Latino com­munities," assessed Manhattan Bor­ough President Scott M. Stringer. "But just because the problem is familiar, we should not respond to it with the tried and often failed poli­cies of the past. More police on the streets must not result in a rerun of the stop-and-frisk abuses of the 1990s. Now more than ever, we need to recommit to community-based policing and to creating positive rela­tionships between law enforcement and struggling neighborhoods. Our focus should be on connecting at-risk youth and their families with sum­mer job programs and other safety nets provided by organizations like the Police Athletic League and the YMCA. No one wants this to be a summer with families grieving for teenage sons and daughters who went off the tracks during this hard economic time. We still have time to avoid that if we're willing to learn from the past."

Disturbed by last week's Amster­dam News front-page file photograph of a swarm of machine gun-toting SWAT team officers leaving a 2007 crime scene at St. Nicholas Houses, Willie Mae Lewis called the paper to speak on it.

Saying that the image was intend­ed to be one that garnered a reaction to take some action, the AmNews fur­ther explained that the incident that brought the loaded-up cops was the shooting death of a man over a $6 gambling win.

Lewis, president of the St. Nicholas Houses Residents Associa­tion, suddenly recalled the shooting and declared that having lived in public housing for 40 years; she understood the temperature of the environment and had often warned against dangerous situations. But she is also an advocate for the strong com­munity bonding that can exist in the projects. The problem, she said, is giv­ing the young people something worthwhile to do.

"A lot of young people have dropped out of school and we need to get them back in school and involved in programs where they can be resourceful. We want them to get their GEDs. We collaborate with the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ). They have sponsored our community center with New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). HCZ have excellent programs. We are trying to provide a studio for the children, too, so that they can do their hip-hop music, but we also specify they need to get some kind of education, and [we] give them business sense. They need to know how to handle their money and how it is being spent. We want to mix educa­tion and business and hip-hop for these young people."

Lewis said that, ultimately, par­ents are the first teachers and coordi­nators of their children's behavior.

"It starts in the home," said Lewis. "I've raised two daughters in public housing. One went to Rutgers and New Brunswick and graduated with a degree in mass media and communication; and the other works for Johnson and Johnson pharmaceuticals and   graduated from the University of North Caroli­na. Regardless of where you live, you've got to have rules and regula­tions. I know a lot of kids whose par­ents aren't where they should be, and a lot of children fall by the way­side. So we are trying to provide pro­grams in our community centers. Our tenants' association is trying to provide GED and computer literacy programs."

State Senate Majority Leader Mal­colm Smith recently announced "the Senate secured $4 million in the fiscal year 2009-10 state budget for front­line anti-gun and gang violence pre­vention efforts that will benefit the hardest-hit communities across the state."

Andre Mitchell, founder and CEO of Man Up Inc., declared the money insufficient for all the trouble spots in the state and queried how soon any money would trickle down to grass­roots organizations.

"Every major political and commu­nity leader with resources should help organizations like Man Up and LIFE Camp to help us combat these serious issues of violence," suggested Mitchell.

Erica Ford, founder of LIFE Camp Inc., added, "Elected officials raise hundreds of thousand of dollars to run for office; help raise money to save lives and build alternatives in the city. Open up the schools and parks to NYC VIP All-Stars for an intense Bury Da Beef summer initia­tive to prevent gun violence and give young people alternatives to the negative, behavior-controlling streets."

Ford quotes disturbing stats: "Every year, 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States alone. In the United States, 65 percent of convicts are dropouts. Lack of educa­tion is one of the strongest predictors of criminal activity."

"In 2005, a total of 3,027 young people were killed by firearms in the United States. About 81 percent of murder vic­tims ages 12 to 24 years old were killed with a firearm in 2005. This is a pandemic," said Mitchell. "If we don't recognize it as such nationally, this is what allows elected officials to avoid addressing the issue as an emergency. We've been to enough meetings and rallies. We have to produce the resources that commu­nities that are suffering need right away. We have to pay attention to what's going on with the killing of some school-age children in Chicago and the rate of incarceration of chil­dren in the wards of Louisiana because of the violence – they still have the highest rate of incarceration throughout the country."

Looking on high, Mitchell said, "The goal is to get the president him­self to address this issue head on and put together a commission to investi­gate what is going in the inner cities."

Participants in the anti-gun vio­lence summit forum at Harlem Hos­pital Center on Wednesday June 3, include: Councilmember Inez Dick­ens (D-District 9), Majority Whip, Speaker Chris­tine Quinn, Rev. Al Sharpton, Harlem Mothers Stop Another Violent End, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and religious leaders.

For more information, call (212) 788-8978 or go to www.council.nyc.gov