Students at NIU are tired of hearing about daily homicides in Chicago. Save Chicago, founded by NIU student Randiss Hopkins, is an activist group working to end that violence.

The organization formed recently in hopes of getting the NIU community more involved with helping to combat the violence. Hopkins came up with the idea during the summer after attending a week-long leadership training in Tennessee that motivated him to seek change in his own city.

“Save Chicago is not a student organization nor is it a club. It is a movement,” said Nathan Lupstein, sophomore political science and philosophy major and Save Chicago member. “We are all in it for the importance of the cause and dedicated to helping the youth of Chicago and raising awareness. Being involved in this movement transcends whoever is involved.”

There is a perception that college students are not as involved or concerned with taking a stand in social issues as students of past generations were, but Save Chicago is a prime example of college students who are committed to and inspired by the cause they are fighting for.

Gun violence in Chicago has been spiraling out of control for the past few years.

The city has even been deemed the “murder capital” of the country based off crime statistic released by the FBI. Just last year there were 500 homicides, not including those that go unreported.

According to the FBI, about seven out of every 100,000 people living in the Chicago area were murdered in 2012. The majority of these murders were committed by people younger than 25 years old and the majority of those killed were also younger than 25 years old.

“Before anything can truly be done to help, awareness must be raised first. That’s what we are doing,” Lupstein said. “We are doing a lot of campaigning of events, programs and advocating to let the youth know that we care and want nothing more than to support them.”

Seeing a campaign on campus like Save Chicago, with students who are passionate about helping, makes me happy.

“NIU has a very strong connection with Chicago since many students are from Chicago,” Lupstein said. “[The students] can do a lot to help bring about change and give back to the communities.”

Being a native of Chicago, I’ve seen all of the harm violence has caused through all of the lives lost and families affected by it. It especially hurts my heart every time I hear about another child becoming a victim of gun violence and being robbed of any possibility of a future.

We can all be part of the change to stop that.

“We are currently trying to gather 300 students to go to three neighborhoods where violence is prominent and do a variety of volunteer work,” said senior communication major Steffen Canino. “We want to make this into an annual event. We are also hoping that this work can expand beyond Chicago and help other cities where there is a lot of violence like Detroit and Compton.”

Saving Chicago isn’t a task that can be done overnight, but every step toward doing so helps.