PICKENS — Arise from the Ashes – Community Development Corporation (AFTA), a Pickens community nonprofit organization, is hosting a free county-wide event.

The “Taking Back Our Streets” event will be held on Saturday, May 7, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at Griffin Ebenezer Baptist Church at 450 Garvin St. in Pickens.

The community, staff and those impacted by drugs and violence will peacefully march on various sections of the surrounding neighborhood. They will stand at these locations bringing awareness to the damage of drugs and violence. At noon, they will come back to Griffin Ebenezer Baptist Church to a host of speakers, including Pickens mayor David Owens, Pickens County sheriff Rick Clark and Pickens police chief Travis Riggs, along with entertainers VSI of Columbia, Operation IMPACT speakers and a host of vendors with information to share.

The informative question-and-answer event will be beneficial for children and adults alike. The “Taking Back Our Streets” event will focus on the drugs and violence within the community. It will tackle how the community can come together and join forces with the police and other organizations within the community and how collectively the community can rid Pickens of drugs that are destroying the community and tearing apart families.

After the senseless shooting in Easley at the Tri-City bowling alley, the community became aware of the gangs within this area. AFTA partnered with the Rev. Tim Sutton of Divine Purpose Outreach Ministries and Amber Anderson of Operation IMPACT Sports of Easley and participated in their highly successful, “Take Back Our Youth” event held on March 26 at the Dream Center that focused on gang awareness for the young and the old.

“Many of the surrounding counties now have actively engaged in educating their communities to make them aware of the risks that are looming in their backyards,” AFTA president and CEO Betty Robinson said. “One of the aspects of AFTA is ‘community,’ and we want to make sure our community is well informed of what is happening right here in Pickens. This is important information, and we hope to see you there.”

Robinson, a Pickens native, founded the organization in 2015. She saw an urgent need to actively engage the community, especially the youth.

She started with getting the youth to volunteer to reconnect them with those within their current community, as well as giving them a better understanding of what mission work really means.

Last year, the youth volunteered in their community by preparing, packing and delivering meals and toiletries to the elders and picking up trash and doing work at the local veterans garden. They also did hands-on work with residents at The Foothills Retirement Center in Easley, cleaning and clearing their walking trail, along with several other tasks. The third organization they volunteered for was Meals on Wheels, where they ran two routes weekly over the summer. This year, AFTA has initiated a mentoring program, theatre program, summer reading and sports program and will continue with its hands-on youth volunteer program.

Contact Robinson at aftacdc@gmail.com or by calling (864) 561-1188 for more information.