LEXINGTON, Ky. — ONE Lexington works in the city to combat a rise in youth violence. For about six years, director Devine Carama has made it the group's mission to change what summers look like for young people in the city. 

ONE Lexington is expanding its outreach with a new program called “Creating Alternative Pathways” dedicated to helping those who have a parent who is incarcerated or are affected by gun violence. 

“When you start looking at the research, first we start with how many youths have been directly impacted by gun violence where that’s the victims or drivers themselves,” Carama said. 

The new program is for 12- to 17-year-olds and is designed to keep them active over the summer.

“Then when you start pulling the layers back and look at their lives on both sides of the guy, you see that incarceration is somehow impacting our family for the trauma of gun violence earlier in their life,” Carama said.

Several local sports, IT, fitness, and music professionals have signed on to come teach kids new skills.

Carama says they serve up to 100 kids a summer and 350 kids in the school year. Fifty kids have already joined this program within its first two weeks.

“In that small age group that just shows you how many you have been impacted by gun violence, or are dealing with the impacts of incarceration within their immediate household in Lexington,” he said. 

He says the demand shows why these kinds of programs are needed, and it motivates him to keep growing their outreach. 

“I also think it’s a motivation for us to continue to build programming and continue to amplify services that serve the most vulnerable populations,” Carama said. 

As the program continues to grow, they hope to add more local support from businesses looking to help the youth.