Mission Local brings us news of the struggling organizations tasked with preventing gang violence from occurring in the first place.  Mission Beacon and the Northwest Community Response Network (CRN), ML explains, patrols the Mission in vans providing safe rides to kids during times of high tensions to prevent them from being swept up into street battles.  However, with $4/gallon gas, the organizations are struggling to keep the vans running.  They've appealed to SFPD to donate the gas, but the Department's promises of assistance have not been met to date.  Moreover, these organizations no longer can afford to do more than drive kids to and from their destinations:

“And then,” adds Tuller, “What do you do once they’re in the vans? What do you do with them? You don’t have any money to buy them a pizza. To take them to the movies. Or to take them out of town for the weekend, the way that we used to. Yet the police department is entitled to a lot of overtime because they’re in a state of emergency.”

“None of us are getting extra recompense,” a woman adds, ”other than that we love our kids and don’t want them to die.”

There's not a lot of information out there as to how to help these organizations, but you can donate to Mission Beacon on their website.

[Mission Local]