On Friday, June 3rd the Mario Cuomo/Tappan Zee Bridge will again be lighting up Orange in honor of Gun Violence Awareness Day. Our Rockland and Westchester groups will be meeting at 7pm at Nyack Memorial Park, overlooking the Hudson River, to picnic, and to together watch the bridge light up. We hope you can join us.

RSVP: https://act.everytown.org/event/wear-orange-2022/44123/signup/

Orange is the color that Hadiya Pendleton’s friends wore in her honor when she was shot and killed in Chicago at the age of 15—just one week after performing at President Obama’s 2nd inaugural parade in 2013. After her death, they asked us to stand up, speak out, and Wear Orange to raise awareness about gun violence.

Since then orange has been the defining color of the gun violence prevention movement. New York gun violence prevention advocate Erica Ford spearheaded orange as the color of peace through her work with her organization, Life Camp, Inc. Whether it’s worn by students in Montana, activists in New York, or Hadiya’s loved ones in Chicago, the color orange honors the more than 110 lives cut short and the hundreds more wounded by gun violence everyday. 

Our movement gains momentum when gun sense activists come together to fight for a future free from gun violence. Wear Orange originated on June 2, 2015—what would have been Hadiya’s 18th birthday. Now, it is observed nationally on the first Friday in June and the following weekend each year. This year, National Gun Violence Awareness Day will be June 3, 2022.

Wear Orange Weekend is an opportunity for us to show the country just how powerful we are. But the work doesn’t end there. Everytown and our partner organizations continue to do life-saving work so that we can get closer to realizing a future free from gun violence. We wear orange to be seen, and demand that we be heard. Support us by going orange.