Stay Gold Movement

The Stay Gold Movement was created in honor of Yakez Semark, who was killed by gun violence in his hometown of Evanston, Illinois, in February 2018 just five months before his 21st birthday. The Movement aims to carry forward the Stay Gold philosophy through Yakez’s friends and family, the expansive community of lives he touched, and through the efforts of a group of loving and intentional folx who are committed to creating a more safe, compassionate, and socially just world. 

We embrace the principles of Shared Safety and the belief that communities must invest in a strong safety infrastructure of wellbeing and trauma recovery – and not a system of policing – in order to build whole communities.

Mission: Through community organizing, education, policy work and advocacy, the Stay Gold Movement works to shift policy, build the collective power of survivors, and create useful resources for survivors of community violence in order to create systemic change and bring forward a vision of shared safety for all.

Read more at www.staygoldyakez.org