The Church of the Holy Cross, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh and the community collected $5,100 for a gun buyback program. Holy Cross is a historically African American parish in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Planned as a day long event, before running out of money the church collected around 150 guns in under an hour.
CNN:
The church gave people $50 or $100, depending on the type of firearm.
“In the first 45 minutes, we actually ran out of money,” the Holy Cross church senior warden Sylvia Wilson told CNN. “Some people were just bringing the guns in and they didn’t want the money. They just wanted to get the guns out of their homes.”
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“It’s very overwhelming but it actually is quite apropos for us because we were doing this to honor Dr. King, who we consider the apostle of nonviolence,” Wilson said.
“We didn’t realize that in Virginia they would be marching today,” she said, referencing a gun rights rally in Richmond on Monday. “We see that as dishonoring his legacy because they’re marching on this holiday representing him. It’s the total opposite of what we’re trying to do today.”
“We had a double homicide outside our church about two months ago,” Wilson said. “It’s time for this violence to stop.”
This is the sign in the front of the church. They say if you want to donate, to come to the Church here in Homewood and give them money. #WTAE pic.twitter.com/PQ9gtdjtlv
— David Kaplan (@DKaplanWTAE) January 20, 2020
The coalition of the church, diocese and community is akin to the medical debt buyback and forgiveness in Alabama.