January 2025 Digest

In this edition of the Digest:

• Profile of Gun Violence in Colorado 2024 - read the report
• Preparing for the Upcoming Legislative Session
  • Set up your congregation's Rapid Response Network
• Gun Violence in the News
• 10th Anniversary memory features Pastors Anne Scalfaro and Alice Horner-Nelson
• Ordinary People Can Prevent Gun Violence
• Our Featured member of the Executive Committee:  Stephanie Greenberg
• A Prayer for 2025
• CFCU January Calendar

Profile of Gun Violence in Colorado 

Several years ago, CFCU adopted a public health approach to gun violence and its prevention, meaning that we start with data in developing responses to this public health crisis. We recently completed the 2024 Profile of Gun Violence in Colorado with 2023 updates of firearm deaths and injuries. We hope you find it useful. 

A few key findings for 2023:

• There were a total of 2,491 deaths and nonfatal injuries from firearms in Colorado, an average of nearly seven people a day.
• Colorado, like all Rocky Mountain states, had among the highest suicide rates in the U.S., 8th highest overall and 13^th highest for firearm suicides.
• In both 2022 and 2023, firearms were the most common cause of death among Colorado’s children aged 5-14 and older teens/young adults aged 15-24.

This article and The Profile of Gun Violence in Colorado report is compiled and written by Stephanie Greenberg, Congregation Bonai Shalom.

From the Advocacy Team

Preparing for the Upcoming

Colorado General Assembly's Legislative Session 

The 2025 Colorado General Assembly’s legislative session begins on January 8 and ends on May 7. We’re expecting a number of bills that CFCU will support and some that we’ll oppose. We’ll need help from as many volunteers as possible to help make CFCU’s views known to legislators. That’s why congregations’ Rapid Response Networks (RRNs) are so important. If your congregation doesn’t have an RRN or you’d like to have more participants in your RRN, now is an ideal time to do it, and we have a PowerPoint to show you how, which describes what RRNs are, how to get one started, and how and when to use your congregation's RRN.

In the next weeks we  will be sending information via our Rapid Response Network emails to inform you of opportunities to phone or email your legislators and to testify.    

We need at least one volunteer from each CFCU congregation to serve as a the RRN contact and be the main advocacy liaison to our Outreach and Engagement Team.  Please email Cheryl Fleetwood at membership@cfcu-co.org if you need support creating or activating your RRN.

Article submitted by Stephanie Greenberg, Congregation Bonai Shalom.

Gun Violence in the News

• Study highlights need for gun violence prevention efforts in rural areas.  
  • A recent study conducted by researchers in Washington state focused on rural adolescents’ experiences with and perceptions of firearms.
  • American Association of Health Care Journalists

• Rating America’s businesses on their actions to reduce gun violence.  

  • Guns Down America, a gun violence prevention organization that focuses on regulating the firearm industry and community investment, recently scored a wide range of mostly national chains, including grocery stores, drug stores, banks, sporting goods stores, retail stores, and restaurants on their actions to reduce gun violence.
  • Business Must Act
• Colorado receives an A- from Giffords for the second year in a row
  • For the past 14 years, Giffords Law Center has produced an annual scorecard of every state based on the strength of its gun laws. For the second year in a row, Colorado was ranked 10^th in its gun laws, earning a grade of A-.
  • Gifford's Law Center

To see more about all these articles click here.

Articles submitted by Stephanie Greenberg, Congregation Bonai Shalom

Rev. Anne Scalfaro and Rev. Alice Horner-Nelson, Calvary Baptist Church,  share a prayer, voicing the grief of mothers who have lost their children through violence and the hope for a world in which there is no gun violence  at the CFCU 10th Anniversary Celebration.  Listen and watch here: https://youtu.be/oBBUDgB0oys

One Model of Faith-Fueled Gun Violence Prevention

Ordinary People Can Prevent Gun Violence:

A Community Forum Hosted by the Fort Collins Area Interfaith Council

On Thursday, December 5, the Gun Violence Prevention Team of the Fort Collins Area Interfaith Council (IFC) hosted a forum designed to educate attendees about gun violence in their area as well as inform them about ways they can support prevention efforts. Three CFCU member congregations (Trinity Lutheran, St. Luke’s Episcopal and St. Paul’s Episcopal) who are active with the IFC helped to plan and organize this event which showcased how faith communities can engage in gun violence prevention. 

Specifically addressing strategies targeting youth, older adults and veterans, the forum included brief presentations by community leaders representing Be SMART for Kids, Larimer County Juvenile Gun Safety Coalition, Alliance for Suicide Prevention, Veteran Affairs Suicide Prevention and Crisis Program, and the Fort Collins Police Department and City Attorney’s Office. The presentations, which were both informative and inspiring, included recommendations for how regular folks can take actions that will help limit unauthorized access to guns, prevent potential suicides and improve implementation of policies aimed at reducing gun violence. The presenters then participated in a panel discussion where they answered questions from the audience.

Kudos to the Fort Collins IFC and local CFCU members for demonstrating faith-fueled action to end gun violence! Perhaps, you and/or your congregation would like to raise awareness about the work underway in your community and help educate ordinary people about how they can prevent gun violence? Or maybe several CFCU members would like to come together to host your own “Ordinary People Can Prevent Gun Violence” forum? 

Please contact Cheryl Fleetwood, Outreach and Engagement Action Team Leader, at membership@cfcu-co.org if you’re interested in learning more!

Article submitted by Cheryl Fleetwood, Central Presbyterian Church

Photo Above:  Boulder CFCU's gun safety information table, set up for two weekends in December in honor of the Remembrance of All Victims of Gun Violence.   Left to right: Stephanie Greenberg, Joanie Nagel, Paula Erez, all from Congregation Bonai Shalom. 

Featuring our CFCU Executive Team:  Stephanie Greenberg

During the next months, we would like to introduce you to CFCU’s Executive Team.  The five members of the Executive Team meet monthly to plan the direction and work of CFCU. 

The Executive Committee is made up of Alana Smart (convener of the Public Health Strategies Action Team), Cheryl Fleetwood (convener of the Outreach/Engagement Action Team), Stephanie Greenberg (convener of the Advocacy Action Team), Daryl Foelske (convener of the Communications Action Team) and Rory Clawson (Treasurer).

This month we are featuring Stephanie Greenberg, who has been active in CFCU for about five years.  Besides convening the Advocacy Team, she has produced the Profile of Gun Violence in Colorado for the past 4 years. 

Stephanie is a Philadelphia native and has lived in Boulder, Colorado with her husband for almost 43 years.  She has two adult children and a grandchild.  

After completing a Ph.D. in sociology, Stephanie spent her career as a researcher. For the last 22 years prior to retirement she worked as an independent consultant conducting research primarily for public and nonprofit agencies that served the needs of children, youth, and families. 

Stephanie is a member of Congregation Bonai Shalom, where she became involved in the issue of gun violence in 2013, shortly after the Sandy Hook tragedy.  Bonai Shalom’s active gun violence prevention group was quickly joined in its work by St. John’s Episcopal in Boulder. The two congregations soon became members of CFCU, followed by a number of other Boulder-area faith communities. In summer 2021, the growing network began to meet and work together. 

In addition to her involvement with CFCU, Stephanie enjoys gardening, travel, and studying the history of the ancient Near East, but her greatest joys are being a grandparent and spending time with her family.

Article submitted by Rita Niblack, Most Precious Blood Catholic Church

A Prayer that Gun Violence Will Cease in 2025

O Holy One,

We awaken to this new year of 2025

with hope, with prayer, and with deep conviction

That peace can come to our land and to our world..that violence can cease.

We pray for a world in which the names Sandy Hook, Uvalde, Columbine 

and all the other places where children have been murdered, 

will fill us with sorrow and mourning, 

but no longer with fear of another school shooting,

because gun violence has ceased.

We pray for a world in which the thought of entering a grocery store,

a movie theater, a place of worship 

will give us pause for respectful reverence

for those who have been gunned down in these places in the past,

but no longer trepidation for what might happen to us or others,

because gun violence has ceased.

We pray for a world in which those who despair

are surrounded by help, healing and the hope for life,

and no longer pick up a gun to harm themselves or others

because gun violence has ceased.

May the fear of gun violence cease,

because firearms have ceased to be used to kill.

May we welcome strangers as friends,

because we no longer worry what weapons they might be concealing.

May our hearts need no protection from hatred and prejudice,

Because we can trust that those whom we meet in the marketplace

and that we ourselves

are not armed with weapons but with love.

Give us the energy and the will to do the work that will make this hope…this prayer…this dream become a reality in this new year of 2025.

Amen

Submitted by Rita Niblack, Most Precious Blood Catholic Church

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Please consider a donation to CFCU during the upcoming year.  Your donation will help us to:

• Unite faith communities and amplify our voices in the prophetic work of speaking against the culture of violence proliferated by firearms
• Participate in public health efforts that reduce gun-related deaths and injuries
• Provide faith-based resources for congregations, for preaching and praying about issues of gun violence.
• Advocate for evidence-based  gun laws and inform you about advocacy opportunities,  especially during the legislative session.
• Examine issues of gun violence and their causes through the lens of faith and provide programs and events to reduce harm