‘Walking side by side’: Community members unite to encourage peace through SNAP organization

Felice Roberson lost her son to gun violence in Cape Girardeau in November 2015. Quinton David Combs had been at an outdoor party on the 500 block of South Frederick Street when someone started shooting.

She says that while it's hard knowing her son's killer hasn't answered for the crime yet, it's almost harder to accept the fact that none of the scores of people who were there during the shooting came forward to name the perpetrator to police.

"That hurt," she says. "I did not even know that that element existed until it happened to me."

About a year ago, she was one of the founders of an outreach and advocacy group called Stop Needless Acts of Violence, Please (SNAP) designed to help foster constructive dialogue about crime in her community.

"When we looked at doing that march, we found 16 killings in a 2.7-mile radius from 2000 to the present," she says.

Most of those, she says, were unsolved like that of her son. For Roberson, her drive was personal. But others in the community like Millie Coney joined because they sensed a dangerous shift in their neighborhoods.

"I was born and raised in Cape," Coney says. "Everybody knows my mom and dad. I thought SNAP looked like a great opportunity because it's a community I care about and these are things that hit hard."

She says that the problem has a combination of causes, from lack of resources to keep adolescents out of trouble to a decline in conflict resolution skill instruction at school and at home. But the first and most important step is to address the violence.

Another SNAP member Edna Patterson says she moved here in 1978 and raised her kids in Cape. She says she felt compelled to get involved after reading about crime in the newspaper.

"It is so senseless and this is my town," she says. "I wanted to get involved for that reason."

SNAP now holds meetings the last Tuesday of each month to discuss how best to serve their community. Sometimes it's as simple as lobbying for a broken streetlight to be fixed. Other times, it's organizing an event. She says Cape Girardeau Police Lt. Brad Smith, who regularly attends their meetings, helps SNAP work with law enforcement.

"They've been a great support to us, really; our hats go off to them. People were afraid to open up," she says. "But that's what it took to get people to open up."

Cape resident Kaye Hood had been involved in outreach through her church for about 15 years, but she says her prayers became more focused after getting involved with SNAP, almost by accident. She saw a group of SNAP volunteers from her car one day and decided to investigate.

"I stopped and rolled down my window and said, 'What are y'all doing?'" she says.

She was soon volunteering right alongside them. The group's largest outreach event so far was its prayer march last summer. Hundreds showed up, much to their surprise, Roberson says.

"It was amazing, how many people came out to show their support," she says.

She says she also appreciated Police Chief Wes Blair and his family marching along with them.

Patterson says that while the march was heartening, consistency will be the key to meaningful change.

"If people would volunteer two or three times a month it would drastically make a difference, Boys and Girls Club or things like that," she says.

Roberson agrees, encouraging people to volunteer or attend SNAP meetings, which are posted to the group's Facebook page.

"We know that change is not going to happen right this second," she says. "But if we start walking side by side, it will."