Why Should Delaware Care?
The rural Sussex County town of Laurel has a disproportionately high violent crime rate. In contrast to Wilmington, gun violence in small towns like Laurel is often forgotten in the statewide conversation. With new statewide grant funding, Laurel community organizers hope they will be able to grow their resources to fight gun violence in their town.
A group of residents in Laurel – a town deep in Sussex County’s farm country with one of the highest violent crime rates in the state – have been working to reduce violence and build community pride through a unique formula of prayer, trash pick up and after-school programs.
After one of Amy Handy’s students, Corey Mumford, was killed in April 2023, the Laurel High School teacher knew she had to do something. Mumford was one of three people – all teenagers – who were fatally shot in Laurel in just six months.
So Handy launched Operation West Laurel, bringing prayer sessions, community clean ups and increased public safety measures to the West side of Laurel, where the majority of the town’s violence takes place.
“We literally walk the path where violence has taken place, and we have been doing that for two years now,” Handy told Spotlight Delaware.
Last week, the group’s efforts were bolstered by receiving a $93,000 grant from Healthy Communities Delaware, a statewide initiative funded by the Delaware Community Foundation and state funding. The grant was given in conjunction with the Wilmington-based End Community Violence Now organization, which is extending its gun violence prevention work into southern Delaware.
Handy and her now-expanded team of about 10 volunteers plan to use the new grant money to build community gardens in West Laurel, with the aim of giving residents access to more fresh produce.
Prayer for peace
Mumford, an 18-year-old standout basketball player at Laurel High School, was shot nine times while walking outside the Wexford Village apartment complex in Laurel. Mumford was not the intended target, and two men were sentenced to prison for his death in Dec. 2024, according to the News Journal.
Two days after Mumford’s death, Handy and fellow Laurel resident Crystal Stevens gathered more than 100 community members to mourn the three teenagers they lost that year and discuss solutions to the town’s gun violence problem.
The following week, Handy and Stevens held their first prayer walk around the town. Since then, the pair has made prayer walks a weekly tradition, now drawing crowds of more than 20 people each week to join in the ritual.
Every Thursday evening, the group dons yellow Operation West Laurel t-shirts and walks around the town, stopping at apartment complexes and basketball courts to pray.
“A lot of the kids will say, ‘the church group is here now!’” Stevens said. “They get excited. They’re running, they’re looking for us.”
While Stevens is not a minister, she described herself as having been “called by God” to lead the prayer walks, during which she allows any attendee to lead a prayer of their own.
Stevens said Operation West Laurel is “under the umbrella” of the New Zion United Methodist Church, which is also located in Laurel. The church houses some of the organization’s programming and provides them with funding, she added.
After-school development
Outside the prayer walks, Handy and her team have widened their programs to include after-school care and summer camps for students who they identify as “at-risk kids.” These kids, Handy said, are often from the area where violence has occurred, or ones who do not attend after-school programming at the local Boys and Girls club.
Ryan Horsey, a teacher at the after-school program, said he believes it is helpful to give kids something structured to do once the school day is finished.
“Getting them off the streets is one of our top priorities, [giving] them a safe place to go after school,” Horsey said.
While Handy said she hopes to continue expanding the after-school program and workforce development initiatives with the new grant money, the funds are primarily earmarked for community beautification efforts in the town.
The group has been doing these beautification efforts since the spring of 2023, including trash pick up walks, placing more trash cans in West Laurel and installing better lighting in high crime areas.
These efforts, Handy said, help Laurel feel more appealing to its citizens, and inspire a sense of community pride.
Laurel Mayor Carlos Oliveras said he supports Operation West Laurel’s beautification initiatives and has participated in some of the group’s trash clean ups and prayer walks.
Oliveras, who was elected mayor in late March, said he plans to make the town’s new slogan “Love where you live,” to encourage Operation West Laurel’s revitalization efforts.
An eye on Sussex County
Lauren Footman, director of End Community Violence Now, said there is a misperception that Wilmington is the only place in Delaware that struggles with high gun violence rates.
For this reason, Footman said, her organization is broadening its focus to communities below the canal, like Laurel and Seaford, which also suffer from high gun violence numbers.
195 people were shot in the city of Wilmington in 2024, which has a population of about 73,000, according to Delaware police data. The Laurel Police Department did not respond to requests for the town’s 2024 shooting data.
Footman’s group has named its downstate initiative the Sussex County Peace and Prosperity Project. Operation West Laurel is the project’s first partner.
“We are an equalizer for the ecosystem, making sure that Laurel, and Sussex more broadly, is not forgotten about in the violence reduction conversation,” she said.
Handy said she first got state leaders to take note of the gun violence problems in Laurel in November 2023, when she hosted a town hall meeting that state representatives, some western Sussex County mayors and members of the Laurel police department attended.
Following the town hall, then-Governor John Carney launched a “Laurel task force” of sorts, Handy said, where some state officials started visiting Laurel more often to provide resources and support to the town.
The task force turned into what the town now calls Laurel Calls, where the mayor, police chief and other community organizers meet on Zoom monthly to talk about any incidents of violence and brainstorm possible programs for the town, Footman said.
According to Handy and her team, the impact of Operation West Laurel is tangible – Laurel has not had a fatal shooting in 14 months, since June 2024.
Delaware State Police reports indicate the town has had at least two nonfatal shootings over the past year, including one most recently in early July.
“When we start taking pride in our community,” Handy said, “that is going to change the way West Laurel is viewed.”
Maggie Reynolds is a Report for America corps member and Spotlight Delaware reporter who covers rural communities in Delaware. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://spotlightdelaware.org/support/.
