{"id":36073,"date":"2023-09-21T19:25:01","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T23:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=36073"},"modified":"2023-09-21T19:25:06","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T23:25:06","slug":"lakeland-pastor-looks-for-solutions-to-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/09\/21\/lakeland-pastor-looks-for-solutions-to-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland pastor looks for solutions to violence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When there\u2019s a need in Northwest Lakeland, Pastor Mike Cooper is there to fill it. And lately, the Pastor has been around quite a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith the economy, the needs are getting greater,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He runs the Dream Center of Lakeland. It\u2019s an organization that provides food, clothes and other resources to the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s what we do,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cWe take the edge off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The edge is violent crime. According to Lakeland police, there had been two homicides in the city this year as of the beginning of September. Each time there\u2019s any shooting, Cooper leads a group back to the same area to clean up and make life a little better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou go home at night and lay your head and you feel like you made a difference today,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Making a difference means bringing like minds to the table. Cooper said partnerships are the solution. He recently met with community leaders to work towards solutions to the violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a call to action with parents, our churches, our community leaders, and our children to come together,\u201d said Lynn Simkins, who heads the nonprofit Grass Roots Solutions. \u201cWe got to do this together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking along the neighborhood streets, Cooper remembers the drug houses and gangs that used to be there. He didn\u2019t grow up in Lakeland, but he knows the struggles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was raised in the Appalachians,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cSo when we say poverty, I understand poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he used an outhouse and shared a bedroom with two sisters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was raised in the worst poverty actually,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot has changed for the better for Cooper and for the neighborhood he calls his own.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Still, the pastor said there\u2019s tension like he\u2019s never seen before, racially and politically. It\u2019s something he\u2019s trying to change through the Dream Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of September, there will be a banquet at Victory Church to celebrate the community and the work done at the Dream Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooper said they\u2019ll also look towards the future, investing in the work that\u2019s left to do in Lakeland to create a brighter future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When there\u2019s a need in Northwest Lakeland, Pastor Mike Cooper is there to fill it. And lately, the Pastor has been around quite a bit. \u201cWith the economy, the needs… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}