There is nothing like summer in the neighborhoods of Chicagoland. After a long winter, summer brings block parties, baseball games, cookouts, and time outdoors with family and friends. It’s a season that reminds us of the strength and beauty of our communities.
But for too many families, summer also brings anxiety. As temperatures rise, so does the threat of gun violence in our neighborhoods.
Conversations about gun violence often focus on laws, policing and politics, and those conversations matter. But prevention begins much earlier — with whether people feel connected to their communities, invested in civic life and seen by the institutions that serve them.
As clerk of Cook County, I do not oversee public safety policy or law enforcement. But in this role, and previously as Cook County commissioner for the 5th District, I have spent years listening to young people talk about violence in their communities.
Their stories resonate deeply with me because I grew up on Chicago’s West Side in a neighborhood deeply affected by economic hardship and gun violence. I understand what it means for young people to move through their communities feeling constantly on alert, and I also understand the importance of neighborhoods where people feel supported, valued and connected to something bigger than themselves.
Many young people today describe walking through neighborhoods where they feel they must remain constantly vigilant. Others speak about wanting safe spaces defined not only by enforcement, but also by opportunity, belonging and respect.
One message that comes through consistently: Too often, young people feel spoken about instead of spoken with. As we begin National Gun Violence Awareness Month, that is something we can all work to change.
When a child is constantly exposed to trauma and instability, it can affect not only their emotional well-being, but also their ability to fully engage in school, build trust in institutions and see themselves as participants in civic life. And when young people feel disconnected or believe systems are unresponsive to their daily experiences, that disconnection can deepen isolation and hopelessness.
No single office or institution can solve gun violence alone, but every organization can help close this connection gap and strengthen community engagement. Because when young people are invited into civic spaces as respected stakeholders, it sends a powerful message that their voices matter, their experiences matter and their participation matters.
That belief is guiding the work of the clerk’s office.
This past year, my office launched a first-of-its-kind high school early-voting initiative in partnership with the Chicago Bears called Defenders of DA’mocracy. The program placed fully operational early-voting sites inside 24 participating Cook County high schools.
More than 125 students were trained as election judges and helped administer those sites. They checked in voters, secured ballots, operated voting equipment, and followed the same strict chain-of-custody and security procedures used at every polling place.
And they delivered: More than 1,100 ballots were cast in a single day of voting.
But the most important outcome was not the number. It was the shift in perspective. Students began asking questions about elections, government and civic participation. They began to see themselves not as outsiders to democracy but as participants in it.
That kind of engagement matters because it is how lifelong civic connection begins.
Throughout National Gun Violence Awareness Month, the clerk’s office will participate in community-based prevention efforts, including Chicago’s Race Against Gun Violence in Grant Park, which happened earlier this month, and events with One Aim Illinois. We are also preparing to host a first-of-its-kind Violence Prevention Town Hall this September at Kennedy-King College for a conversation centered on elevating the voices and ideas of young people too often left out of these discussions.
If we want safer communities, we must also build more connected ones. That means listening more carefully to young people, creating more pathways into civic life and recognizing that they are not only affected by the future they inherit — they are also essential to shaping it.
Monica Gordon is the clerk for Cook County.
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