Residents of the Riverside Apartments on Olson Drive are looking toward a higher authority to help them with the problems at the complex.
“We’ve tried the police. We’ve tried the Housing Authority,” said Malika Mosley, the president of the tenants association.
“We need Jesus.”
To that end, the tenants are planning a community fellowship day at Riverside.
It is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 8 at noon.
It will be part barbecue, part prayer service, part social gathering.
Tenants met Thursday night at the Riverside community center to begin sketching out the details.
Talk of the event started after the June 22 fatal stabbing of resident Jennifer Lewis.
Then tragedy struck again early Wednesday when 39-year-old Bernice McFadden was shot after a man opened fire into a crowd of people in a courtyard.
While an almost immediate arrest was made in the June 22 stabbing, police are still looking for the shooter in Wednesday’s incident.
Residents, who told members of the Ansonia Housing Authority Wednesday that they are scared to let their children outside, see the Aug. 8 event as a way to rebuild.
“If we can get together and just be decent to each other, if we can work together, we can make the whole thing better,” Mosley said. “There’s a lot of outside elements that shouldn’t be. But while we’re here, why can’t we just be together?”
Among the people present Thursday was Pastor Nathan Page, the leader of Full Faith Ministries in Bethany.
“When there was prayer going on at the (community) center here, there was less violence,” Page said.
Tenants are looking for religious leaders and church groups from the area to participate.
The event is still being planned, but organizers are talking about making posters of people who have been killed at the apartment complex, holding a march around the property to attract people out of their homes and having musical performances.
While residents have said they are now frightened to leave their homes because of the violence, Mosley said she wasn’t concerned about holding the event at the complex.
“You’ve got to be the worst of the worst to start up something when people are out here praying,” she said.
Any church groups interested in participating in the event can contact Barbara Casagrande at (203) 888‑5909.
To read more stories about the recent violence at the complex click on the links below:
Riverside Residents to Ansonia: DO SOMETHING
Ansonia Shooting Victim Had Many Friends
Woman Shot to Death At Ansonia Apartment Complex
The Ansonia-Danbury Connection
