By Madina Toure
Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, District Attorney Richard Brown, elected officials, community leaders and advocates will host a borough-wide interfaith prayer vigil for the victims of the Charleston massacre and a lighting ceremony for gun violence awareness Monday night.
The ceremony, which will take place at 8 p.m. in front of the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park will also include a reading of names of Queens residents lost to gun violence.
Every night from June 22 through June 30, the front exterior of the Queens Museum will be lit orange, the official color of Gun Violence Awareness Month. It will be seen by drivers along the stretch of the Grand Central Parkway in front of the museum, which has an average of about 168,000 drivers daily.
Rev. Dr. Alfonso Wyatt of the Greater Allen AME Cathedral of New York; Tamika Mallory, an anti-gun violence advocate; and Pastor Richard Hogan of Divine Deliverance Ministry in Jamaica, father of gun violence victim Laseam Hogan, will be at the ceremony.
In 2013, both houses of the state Legislature unanimously passed a resolution proclaiming June as Gun Violence Awareness Month to raise awareness in the state and promote bipartisan efforts to address the issue.
Assistant Chief David Barrere, commanding officer of the NYPD Patrol Borough Queens South; Rabbi Robyn Fryer Bodzin of the Israel Center of Conservative Judaism in Flushing; Dr. Ghassan Elcheikhali of the Razi School in Woodside; and Erica Ford, founder and CEO of LIFE Camp Inc. in Jamaica, will also be present.
Reach reporter Madina Toure by e-mail at mtour
