These are the words of Loren Lieb, the mother of one of the children shot ten years ago at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granda Hill, California.  Loren is a Vice President of the California Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

August 10, 1999. The day started like any other. Everyone in my house was still asleep when I left for work at 6:30 a.m. I always went to work early so I could come home in the early afternoon to pick up my kids, 6-year-old Josh and 8-year-old Seth, from Camp Valley Chai at the North Valley Jewish Community Center, a few miles from our house. Everyone was asleep, so I left without saying goodbye, or I love you.  
The day started like any other, but ended like a nightmare. Later that morning, my husband called to tell me, in a strained voice, that there was a “man with a gun” at the camp. I couldn’t make any sense of the statement. Why would there be a man with a gun at a summer day camp? Had he shot anyone? Why wasn’t he captured?
I left my office in downtown Los Angeles and drove 40 minutes to the camp, all the while listening to radio reports of the shooting, which said that 6- and 8-year-old-boys had been shot. The streets near the JCC were closed for several blocks. The five lanes of Rinaldi Street were filled with police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, and news vans, and hundreds and hundreds of frantic parents. Immediately, a complete stranger told me she thought that one of the victims was named Josh. The next thing I heard was a police officer calling through a bullhorn for the parents of Josh Stepakoff. I ran under the yellow tape and he grabbed me firmly by the shoulders, looked my straight in the eye and kept repeating, “He’s going to be okay.” Of course was grateful to know that he would be OK, but how could something like that happen to a 6-year-old child in a supposedly civilized country?
Josh was shot twice: once in the leg, the bullet going straight through the bone, and once in the hip with the bullet stopping under the skin near his spine. It was many hours before we learned the whereabouts of Seth.
To commemorate the anniversary of the shooting, Josh Stepakoff, a survivor and now 16, is organizing with another survivor a Victory Over Violence 10K Run on October 4, 2009.  The run is being organized to raise awareness about gun violence in our community and to raise money for survivors of gun violence.

August 10 marks the 10th anniversary of the the shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community. At about 10:30 a.m., a neo-Nazi with a semi-automatic weapon and hundreds of rounds of ammunition entered the front door of the Center. He found himself face-to-face with a receptionist, and young campers and their counselors who were returning to the building after playing a game.

He began firing his weapon,  sweeping it from side to side, unloading about 70 rounds in a matter of seconds. He wounded 5 people: the receptionist, a 16-year-old counselor, and three young campers who were 5 and 6 years old, and terrorized hundreds more. After fleeing the Center, the shooter car-jacked a car and drove a short distance to Chatsworth where he brutally murdered postal worker Joseph Ileto as he delivered mail. He later fled to Las Vegas where he turned himself in.

The Victory Over Violence Run is being held on October 4, 2009, on the campus of California State University, Northridge (CSUN). The San Fernando Valley Chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Women Against Gun Violence (WAGV) are collaborating on the event, with CSUN Hillel as the campus sponsor.

Spread the word, sign up for the run, and be part of the solution for a Victory Over Violence!