END GUN VIOLENCE

The Angelneka Wings Scholarship Fund supports at-risk children girls ages 6-12 in the Fuller Park Community. We provide community-based mentoring and dance classes. Our goal is to create a peer support group to help children who lost a parent due to gun violence.

My name is Angela Boyd. I am the mother of Angelneka B. Smith, who was killed in a shooting on September 8th, 2019. She left behind my granddaughter Caylen, who was only six at the time of her mother’s death. Growing up in the Fuller Park community alongside her two brothers, Angelneka attended Hendrick Grammar School, Tilden Career Academy, and ultimately Chicago State University. She went to great lengths to support Caylen, and to help out many children in the community whose lives were plagued by adverse circumstances.

As a working mother concerned about safety, throughout Angelneka’s upbringing, I always made sure that she was involved in various community programs. I was, and continue to be, a believer in community programs’ abilities to uplift young people, create a sense of unity within neighborhoods, and prevent opportunities for violence. Unfortunately, when my daughter died, I found that resources like the ones she benefited from virtually every afternoon as a young girl were not there for her daughter. I looked for grieving programs, community organizations, and social groups that could support my granddaughter in Fuller Park, and could find none. I ended up finding great resources in Evergreen Park, Northside, and Chicago Lawn, but I was very frustrated by how far I had to travel to find them. I later came to learn that several of my daughter’s friends who had also been lost to gun violence had daughters they left behind who were experiencing similar emotional and personal challenges, but who were unable to reach these relatively faraway areas.

In response to these heartbreaking stories, my frustration with the lack of resources in my area, and in order to honor the memory of Angelneka, I decided to take action. I started the Angelneka Wings Scholarship Fund to support children ages 6-12 through a community dance class. I have also been working to help create peer support groups based around rapping at the community Chicago Park District. It is my sincerest goal to help build safe spaces for young people in Fuller Park, like those Angelneka once enjoyed. Though this community is gravely underserviced and deeply impacted by violence, we have the power to help make Fuller Park a more positive place for its residents, linked in strength and resilience. It is our duty to move our community in the right direction today -- one step closer to a Fuller Park without daughters who have known the pain of a mother’s senseless death.

Angela Boyd, CEO