A new mentorship program is trying to catch Pittsburgh teens and young adults long before street beef turns into gunfire. On Friday, organizers officially launched Guns Down Minds Up at the Kingsley Center, pitching it as a practical alternative to retaliation, incarceration and loss of life.
The program pairs young people with mentors who have survived similar struggles and come out the other side. Those mentors will walk participants through emotional regulation, conflict resolution and leadership skills, with organizers betting that relatable life experience will land differently than a lecture.
The kickoff at the East End center drew mentors, community partners, and local teens for workshops and sign-ups, as organizers laid out what they hope will be a hands-on, reality-based approach to keeping young people alive and out of the system.
Guns Down Minds Up is designed for people ages 14 to 25, with sessions focused on de-escalation and leadership training delivered by mentors with lived experience, according to WPXI. Organizers at the launch told the station they are intentionally leaning into a hands-on format to reach young people who do not respond to more traditional outreach.
Mentor Demetrious Fleming drove that point home for the crowd, telling attendees that the goal is to show a different path and stressing that "you can always do something different," urging young people to choose options other than prison or death, WPXI reported. Fleming framed mentorship as a chance to interrupt cycles that often begin in childhood and then flare up online or on the street.
From Pitch To Program
The program’s name and concept started not in a conference room but in a local pitch competition. Allegheny County’s ACAR Reentry Summit featured a Justice Impact Challenge entry called "Guns Down, Minds Up" that took top honors earlier this year. Allegheny County noted that the winning proposal laid out a plan to reduce violence through mentorship and leadership rooted in lived experience.
Seed Funding And Support
The Justice Impact Challenge, which offers seed funding and a year in the BreakIT incubator, lists Guns Down, Minds Up as one of its winning concepts and details support for winners that goes beyond a cash prize. Justice Impact Challenge materials say winners receive funding and mentorship intended to help turn pitch-deck ideas into operating programs.
Where It Will Run
Organizers chose the Kingsley Center in Larimer for the kickoff, building on a longtime neighborhood hub that already hosts youth programming. The Kingsley Association operates the Kingsley Center at 6435 Frankstown Avenue and lists a range of community programs on its website that the new mentorship effort will plug into. Organizers said they will roll out session schedules and sign-up information as Guns Down Minds Up develops.
Why Mentorship Matters
Local violence-prevention strategies increasingly treat gun violence as a public health crisis, and targeted mentorship is one of the tools they lean on most. Research and county reviews cited by the Giffords Center show that homicides and shootings are concentrated in a small number of neighborhoods and disproportionately impact young Black men. Supporters say that reality makes mentorship and conflict-resolution training a strategic investment, according to Giffords.
