ALLENTOWN, Pa. — When someone is shot and killed in Allentown, Jeani Garcia hops into action.
An anti-violence activist, Garcia, 54, assists victims’ families in the aftermath of fatal shootings.
She guides them as they plan unexpected funerals and helps them apply for state funding to cover the costs that arise in the wake of crimes.
It’s a lot for families to manage, Garcia said. She knows because her son was murdered in Allentown 13 years ago.
“It definitely sparked the movement in me, and it was not easy,” Garcia said.
Her son’s death led Garcia to her current work at Promise Neighborhoods of the Lehigh Valley, where she supports families affected by gun violence and advocates for prevention strategies to stop shootings from happening in the first place.
After nine months serving as the interim leader of the anti-poverty, anti-violence nonprofit organization, Garcia will officially become the executive director of Promise Neighborhoods in the new year, effective Jan. 1.
“She’s somebody that’s known for being an advocate and a hero in this work,” Hasshan Batts, the former head of Promise Neighborhoods, said of Garcia.
Promise Neighborhoods’ history
Promise Neighborhoods, based at 333 Union St., Allentown, has programs focused on youth, the environment, community wellness, workforce development and other causes.
It started in 2007 as an arm of the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley and became an independent organization about a decade ago.
Batts led the nonprofit for eight years, starting as executive director in 2017.
For five years before his exit last spring, Batts began preparing Garcia to be his successor, he said.
Batts left Promise Neighborhoods to focus his efforts on the Watson-Batts School of Construction, which he co-founded to help people of color secure careers and business opportunities in the construction industry.
Since April, Batts has been a senior advisor to Garcia as she has acclimated herself to the executive director position, but he has been a mentor to her for even longer.
“She’s somebody that’s known for being an advocate and a hero in this work."Hasshan Batts, the former head of Promise Neighborhoods
Garcia first started working with Batts as a volunteer violence interrupter at Promise Neighborhoods in 2018.
Violence interrupters develop relationships with fellow community members, so they feel comfortable coming to Promise Neighborhoods with concerns or tips that they wouldn’t bring to the police.
Those credible messengers are a key element of Promise Neighborhoods’ anti-violence program.
“Because of our relationships in the community and being embedded in the community, we are able to [de-escalate] things before they even arise,” Garcia said.
Garcia transitions to leadership
In 2019, Garcia was hired to join Promise Neighborhoods’ staff as a project director, leaving behind her previous day job as a health, life and fixed annuities agent in the insurance field.
She eventually became Promise Neighborhoods’ director of operations — the role she most recently held before taking on the executive director position.
In her time at the nonprofit, Garcia has grown in her patience and understanding of the various systems at play in anti-violence work, Batts said.
“She was a community member who wanted to see change, and she wasn’t taking any excuses,” he said. “She still has that, but I think she’s grown more politically astute.”
The work to combat community violence isn't easy, Garcia said, especially when funding isn’t a given.
Just as Garcia started as the interim executive director in April, Promise Neighborhood suffered a major funding blow, losing $1.9 million in federal grant money.
Under the Trump administration, the U.S. Justice Department eliminated 373 grants valued at $819.7 million to reduce ”wasteful” spending that wasn’t aligned to the president’s priorities, his officials said.
Promise Neighborhoods was among the 554 organizations affected by the move, and as a result, it had to cut four violence interrupters from its staff.
In the time since, Garcia has been focused on increasing Promise Neighborhoods’ local and corporate donors. The organization will have its first fundraising event in March.
Garcia also is leading the organization through the development of a collaborative gun violence prevention project in Allentown, specifically focused on Jordan Heights and nearby center city areas.
A collaborative approach to gun violence
Promise Neighborhoods was awarded $1.6 million by the state in 2024 to implement the Coordinated Community Violence Intervention, or CCVI, project. The grant ends in 2027.
As part of the project, Promise Neighborhoods holds focus groups with community members to collect their ideas for solutions to reducing gun violence.
Promise Neighborhoods also has met with representatives from local hospitals, the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office, Allentown School District, Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk’s office and the Allentown Police Department.
Together, those organizations will create and update an online CCVI dashboard with resources related to the vital conditions for health and well-being, Garcia said.
Vital conditions are the factors that enable people to thrive, such as access to food, educational opportunities and good-paying jobs.
“Why people commit crimes, why people are violent in the community...that's systemic.”Jeani Garcia, incoming executive director of Promise Neighborhoods
The dashboard, which Garcia calls a “transparency tool,” will list information on the 50 most recent shootings in Allentown, too. It will launch within the next three months.
Promise Neighborhoods works to help people improve their vital conditions through its programming, as well.
When people thrive in all facets of life, the outcome is a reduction in violence, Garcia said.
“Why people commit crimes, why people are violent in the community, it is the conditions that they live in, and that's systemic,” she said.
Addressing the vital conditions
That’s why Promise Neighborhoods’ approach is holistic, Garcia said.
To tackle food insecurity, there’s the Promise Food & Wellness Center, a food pantry at Hays Elementary School, that lets residents order free food online and schedule a pick-up time.
To encourage education, Promise Neighborhoods has mentors based at Raub Middle School, and the nonprofit's safe pathways program keeps students out of trouble as they walk home from school.
When it comes to employment, Promise Neighborhoods has a workforce development program that teaches participants the soft and hard skills they need to get hired and succeed in a career.
In the 11-week program, participants learn how to build a resume and practice answering interview questions.
Then, they are matched with local employers in various industries — such as construction, retail and health care — to gain job experience.
Garcia said the third cohort of the workforce development program will graduate in February. Promise Neighborhoods will apply for funding through the U.S. Department of Labor to continue the program, she said.
Batts said the “next phase” of anti-violence work will be providing people with employment opportunities.
“If you can support somebody in developing skills, starting a business and earning $75,000 a year, they won’t shoot anybody,” he said.
“They’ll be too invested in the community to get caught up in violence, overdosing and things like that.”
Promise Neighborhoods also offers re-entry programming for people returning home from incarceration, helping them get IDs and mental health support.
The organization serves as a reference on job applications for those who volunteer with the nonprofit, too.
DA buys into Promise Neighborhoods’ model
Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan said the services that Promise Neighborhoods provides are “important to the community” and “likely to decrease criminal activity.”
That’s why his office gave Promise Neighborhoods a $10,000 grant to support its re-entry programming. That funding was used during a six-month period, starting in December 2024 and ending in June 2025.
Holihan said he credits Garcia for helping him understand that “just locking people up for the crimes that have already occurred doesn’t work if your goal is to reduce crime moving forward.”
Holihan, who became DA in 2024, also said it's hard to measure the impact of anti-violence work because “you can’t point to a crime that didn’t happen, and then say, ‘This is the reason why it didn’t happen.’”
But he added, “Two years in the numbers look good.”
In 2025, the DA’s office counted five homicides in Allentown, including a road-rage incident that was determined to be self-defense.
That total doesn’t include a Dec. 19 fatal shooting on the city’s East Side that the DA’s office is investigating.
Holihan said his office considers the legal definition of intent when ruling on whether a killing is a homicide.
Last year, there were four homicides in Allentown — the fewest since 1989, he said
In 2023, there were 19 homicides in the city, and the year before that, there were 10, according to the DA’s office. In 2021, there were 13 homicides in Allentown.
‘You’re seeing the results’
Holihan said Garcia provides him with insight into what parts of the city are “heating up as far as violent crime is concerned.”
She also shares helpful information about whether an interpersonal fight or a gang-related “turf battle” may be the cause, he said.
Garcia’s partnership offers the DA’s office more credibility in the communities most affected by gun violence, Holihan said.
“We’ll have people who talk to us, who now trust us more than they would without Jeani’s connection.”
“My job is the last shooting and her job is the next shooting."Gavin Holihan, Lehigh County District Attorney
Holihan said shootings in urban cities take place in concentrated areas and affect a small segment of the population — mostly men aged 17-35 from minority communities that struggle socioeconomically.
“Jeani’s got phenomenal insight into that community,” he said. “And she is more than happy to share her insights when she thinks I am falling short of my obligations.”
Holihan said he and Garcia have a saying between the two of them that defines their work: “My job is the last shooting, and her job is the next shooting."
“I’m restricted in doing things reactively, where she can work proactively," he said. "That together — you’re seeing the results.”
Keeping her son's memory alive
Recently, Garcia was chosen to share her expertise at the state level.
She is serving on the inaugural advisory committee for Pennsylvania’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention under Lt. Gov. Austin Davis to help shape the state’s anti-violence approach.
The committee has met quarterly since September. In her committee roles, Garcia said she plans to advocate for trauma-informed care and addressing the root causes of violence.
“To be able to sit at the table with the lieutenant governor [after] losing a son to gun violence in [Allentown] – I feel like it's come full circle for me.”Jeani Garcia, incoming executive director of Promise Neighborhoods
She also said the state’s funding process for grassroots organizations needs to be more accessible and user-friendly.
She hopes to see the Shapiro-Davis administration address that concern, but the committee’s work is just getting started, she said, and she’s glad to be included in it.
“To be able to sit at the table with the lieutenant governor [after] losing a son to gun violence in [Allentown] — I feel like it's come full circle for me.”
Garcia’s son, Kareem Fedd, was murdered in 2012 at age 17 in a gang-related shooting.
His death pushed Garcia toward her advocacy work, she said, which she uses as a way to keep his memory alive.
Fedd may have gotten caught up in gang life, but he was funny and smart, too, Garcia said.
He always helped out seniors in his neighborhood, she said, and once he gave away his brand new school clothes to a friend in need.
“I didn't want what happened to Kareem to be forgotten,” Garcia said. “I also did not want it to be forgotten that he lived, too.”
To remember her son, Garcia created Kareem’s Community Day — an annual event in Allentown with games and free school supplies.
At the inaugural event this year, Promise Neighborhoods gave out 75 gun locks.
In February, Garcia will hold the sixth annual Kareem’s Community Healing Day, also in Allentown.
For that day, which is recognized by the city, Garcia leaves electronic tea light candles outside City Hall with markers. Anyone can come and remember a lost loved one by writing their name on a candle, she said.
“His name is attached, but it is for the community,” Garcia said.
‘A different kind of grief’
Garcia also supports other mothers who’ve lost a child to gun violence through her nonprofit organization, Mother2Mother.
Mother2Mother welcomes women who may not feel comfortable at a traditional grief group — those whose loved one’s death may be stigmatized because of gang involvement or drug use or even suicide, Garcia said.
About 15 women meet for two hours every other Sunday at Promise Neighborhoods’ headquarters.
“It's a sisterhood,” Garcia said of the group.
“She’s an amazing woman. I can say that a million times.”Shaykayarira DelRio-Gonzalez
Garcia is working on expanding Mother2Mother to Florida, New York and Reading.
Shaykayarira DelRio-Gonzalez, who will lead the Reading chapter, said she’s familiar with both sides of gun violence — one of her sons was murdered, and another is serving 70 years for a double homicide.
DelRio-Gonzalez couldn’t find healing from a church grief group, or the one recommended by her therapist, she said.
“It’s a different kind of grief, and not everyone understands that,” she said.
But slowly, DelRio-Gonzalez has built a community of women who understand each other’s pain, and together they’ve become the Reading chapter of Mother2Mother.
DelRio-Gonzalez, who also is a Reading Area School Board director, said Garcia’s leadership support has been vital.
In addition to her knowledge of available resources, Garcia serves as an example of how to be sensitive to others’ pain while displaying the strength that is possible through healing, DelRio-Gonzalez said.
“She’s an amazing woman,” DelRio-Gonzalez. “I can say that a million times.”
