KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City organization is taking steps to make the city safer for everyone.

Volunteers with KC Mothers in Charge teamed up with officers from Kansas City’s police department to spend part of Tuesday afternoon near East 53rd Street and Brooklyn.

The group received a grant from the Department of Justice in 2019. It allows the group to target neighborhoods across the city as part of an anti-crime initiative.

Mothers in Charge focuses on three-block areas that see the most violence. They chose the area near Blue Hills Park because of two homicides and several other shootings have happened there recently.

“Our violence is so bad here in Kansas City today, we’re at 120 homicides, we got to do something. If we don’t do something as a community it is bad and it is a community problem. Until we address the community as a whole it’s not gonna change,” Rosilyn Temple, KC Mother’s in Charge, said.

Volunteers knock on doors and talk to people, handing out door hangers with information about the TIPS Hotline. The information includes a QR Code that anyone can scan with a cell phone to submit an anonymous tip to police.

Temple said homicide is a behavior that people learn at home. So is refusing to provide information to help police solve crimes and make the area a safer place for everyone to live.

“We don’t have to like each other, but we can respect each other and that’s all it will take, out of love, just respecting each other. To be able to be safe, our children can grow up and go to school in this neighborhood, in our community and be able to grow up, but kids don’t think they’re gonna grow past 14 in our community. That’s a problem,” Temple said.

Kansas City’s police department agrees, saying that is why it joined in the canvassing effort Tuesday afternoon.

“We’ve worked hand in hand with them in regards to some of the homicide issues and violent crime issues here in Kansas City and we’re just hoping to extend that partnership here. Hopefully we can find out some more information about some of the homicides that have occurred in this area,” Major John Patton, Kansas City Police Department, said.

Patton says the department also knows it is battling a trust issue with the community, and that’s why it offers things like the TIPS Hotline and the QR Code.

“As law enforcement we understand the importance of the community. There are cases where sometimes people in the community feel that they don’t necessarily trust the police. So to have an outside organization that can come in, a lot of times they can get us information that we need to assist in our homicide and violent crime investigations,” Patton said.

Kansas City police say they’ve investigated 120 homicides so far in 2022. The largest majority of victims are Black men between 25 and 34 years old.

Anyone can call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS to report information about a crime. You can also scan the QR Code that can be found on the KC Crime Stopper’s website.