BATON ROUGE – The Louisiana Center for Health Equity (LCHE) celebrated six years of implementing its signature violence prevention program, the Youth Peace Olympics, with a fundraising campaign kickoff on Sunday, October 27th.

The Center hopes to collect $25,000 and use the funding to expand its program into Old South Baton Rouge. The money would be funneled into activities that provide area youth with constructive recreation, positive interaction with law enforcement, and non-violent approaches to conflict resolution.

This year’s Youth Peace Olympics, hosted by Michelle McCalope and Frederick Bell, included award presentations as well as entertainment from the LSU Gospel Choir, teen gospel performing artist Alana Buckley, trumpeter Andre James “AJ” Ferguson and Kenner soloist Will Hayes.

LCHE’s President and Founder, Alma Stewart spoke about the purpose of the Peace Olympics, saying, “We understand that violence is a public health issue. One of the ways to improve our public health outcomes is to decrease the number of premature mortalities and other acts of violence. The Youth Peace Olympics gets at the core of this, starting with our most precious resources – our children.”

The Youth Peace Olympics continues into 2020 and so far, more 300 students have benefited from the program.

Click here for information about The Youth Peace Olympics.