A roomful of Boston-area households have been introduced collectively for the thirteenth yr to have fun the lives of family members misplaced to violence and to construct neighborhood and fellowship within the face of tragedy.
“Today is about recalling the smiles, the laughter and joy our loved ones brought into our lives. They are more than victims, as all of us know. They were our friends and our family,” Kara Hayes, the chief of the victim-witness advocate program on the Suffolk District Attorney’s workplace, mentioned firstly of the thirteenth Annual Breakfast for Survivors of Homicide Victims at Florian Hall on Thursday.
“I’m going to quote some of the amazing survivors in this room when I say, we can’t bring our loved ones back, but we can bring them forward in everything we do,” she continued.
And they have been introduced forth.
Not solely within the solemn recitation of the names of these misplaced prior to now yr — in addition to loving submitted messages for these misplaced maybe not as lately — however with their smiling faces featured within the pins worn by their members of the family, in tales cherished and shared with others, and in good deeds that proceed to be impressed by the lives they’d lived.
“People understand and desire their loved one to be remembered. This kind of says, my loved one mattered, their lives mattered,” Kim Odom instructed the Herald following the occasion. “As emotional as it can be to say their name, to hear their name, it’s still important that we acknowledge that their lives matter.”
Kim Odom and her husband Ronald Odom Sr. misplaced their son, Steven, to murder on Oct. 4, 2007, when the boy was only a 13-year-old scholar in eighth grade at Roxbury’s James P. Timilty Middle School. The youngest of 5 siblings, Steven was, the Odoms mentioned, somebody who wore his passions on his sleeve and had a rosy outlook for the long run.
“Steven loved family, faith and community,” Kim Odom mentioned. She recalled a poem he had written for college, “In his poem, he declares that ‘I am basketball, I am drums. I’m an individual.’ … Unfortunately, he understood the violence locally and he was involved about that. And he wrote a poem about that as nicely and mentioned that the neighborhood must get collectively to begin peace and cease being on the streets.
“We learned all of this from his eighth grade journal,” his mom mentioned, “that these were the things that he was carrying.”
The Odoms, co-pastors at True Vine Church, have continued their son’s mission to carry peace by means of The SPOT for Life Foundation, honoring Steven P. Odom — from which the acronym is fashioned together with the phrase Training — for which they do outreach work.
The Odoms have been two of the 4 folks honored on the breakfast for his or her work within the survivor neighborhood. The different honorees have been Clarissa Turner, whose son Willie Marquis was murdered in Charlestown on Nov. 29, 2011, and Frank Farrow, whose cousin Jermaine “Manny” Goffigan was murdered at 9 years previous on the eve of Halloween in 1994.
Turner runs the Legacy Lives On basis to offer, its web site states, “ongoing support to families that have been affected and have lost loved ones to homicide or street violence.” Farrow serves as government director of the Office of Black Male Advancement within the administration of Boston mayor Michelle Wu.
Their work is a sterling instance of what Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden described as a what a neighborhood of “overcomers” can do.
“It is something that the Lord dropped on my spirit very early on in my appointment as the DA, because I believe that overcomers are going to change the world,” he mentioned in a speech earlier than presenting recognition awards. “I’ve always thought that even ‘survivor,’ that may not necessarily truly define who we are. So I coined the phrase — and it’s not nothing new, it’s straight out of the Word, but you all are more than just survivors. You’re overcomers.”
Those we misplaced in 2023
The names of those that have been misplaced in Boston to murder prior to now yr have been learn by organizers and honorees on the breakfast. Here are the names of the 35 folks killed by murder as they have been learn out within the remembrance ceremony:
Jymaal Cox, Tyler Lawrence, Brianna Brown, Paris Quilter, Diva Ayuso, Terrell Banks, Mario Santos, David McDonald, Jose Despeignes, Orlando Watkins, Barry Whelan Christopher Shivers, Joshua Marshall, Reneil Miller, Robert Scott, Gavyn Henry, Naythan Matos, David Mayers, Nelson Curet, Tywan Meek, Savion Ellis, Dante Webb, Shawn Lydon, Jazreanna Sheppard, Jackson Beausejour, Moises Alberto Ortiz-Santiago, Xavier Rivas, Princess Charles, Kimberly Webb, James Jones, Kalil Jackson, Jean Casseus, Marco Sosa, Margarita Morehead, Santos David Canizales, and Margaret Mbitu.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”