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Wear orange on June 5

June 5 is National Gun Violence Awareness Day, which is marked by the Wear Orange campaign. Orange is the color that Hadiya Pendleton’s friends wore in her honor when she was shot and killed in Chicago at the age of 15 in January 2013. After her death, they asked us to stand up, speak out and Wear Orange to raise awareness about gun violence. Each year, Wear Orange has grown ever larger. In 2019, hundreds of thousands of people participated in #WearOrange on Twitter along with more than 300 corporate and nonprofit national partners, such as Viacom, Levi Strauss & Co., and Dick’s Sporting Goods.

As a service project in honor of Wear Orange, Moms Demand Action of Williamsport will be out and about on June 5, wearing our orange shirts, delivering boxes of fresh oranges to various non-profits serving our community. Moms Demand Action is a non-partisan, pro-2nd Amendment group which advocates for safe gun storage and common-sense gun laws.

On June 5, I will wear orange for Trevor Wehner, one of the victims of the mass shooting at the Henry Pratt Company in Aurora, Illinois on Feb. 15, 2019. Trevor, a 21-year-old Northern Illinois University student, was murdered on his very first day as an intern when a terminated employee opened fire in the plant. Trevor’s story resonated with me because my 20-year-old son also was working an internship in a large manufacturing plant, and it could have been him. On any given day, it could be him, or my daughter, or my husband, or even me. We lose 100 Americans every day to gun violence. It could be anyone I know. It could be anyone you know.

Who will you wear orange for on Friday, June 5?

SUE FULTON

Moms Demand Action volunteer

Loyalsock Township

Submitted via Virtual Newsroom

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