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Basketball tournament hosted by gang prevention group to raise awareness

Orange basketball laying on a basketball court in overcast weather
TJ Dragotta
/
Unsplash

On Saturday, local organizations in the Salt Lake area put together an event to help tackle the issue of gang-related violence in the community.

Using sports to educate and raise awareness about crimes and how to keep kids safe from them, ‘Choose Gang Free’ and local partners hosted an annual 3-on-3 basketball tournament for elementary and middle school-aged kids.

Over 100 local kids participated in the tournament, all of them participating in the game and having fun together as well as providing them the opportunity to find direction in their daily lives.

Austin Vega, whose daughter took to the court, says that it’s important to show kids and parents that they’re not alone and that there’s a lot of support in the community. He says that the tournament helped show that there’s other options besides crime, so if kids get bored, they don’t have to follow bad influences.

Andrea Atencio-Valdez with Choose Gang Free says that there’s a real problem in Utah and that a lot of people like to turn a blind eye to the state having a gang problem. She says that gang violence is a prevalent issue across Salt Lake Valley, explaining that kids keep getting recruited by gangs at younger and younger ages with some of them even being in the fourth and fifth grade age range.

For there to be change in the Salt Lake community, many believe that it takes everyone coming together to help keep kids safe and that it’s important to show that support of family.

Jared Gereau is pursuing a Journalism major with an emphasis in Social Media at Utah State University. He is planning on using his experience to pursue a career with USU Athletics sometime after he graduates. In his free time, Jared enjoys watching movies, playing games and creating content for his YouTube channel.