CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) — Champaign resident Shanna McGuire held her annual Hill Celebration — a gun violence and drug abuse awareness event —  at Wesley Park on Saturday.

McGuire organizes the event each year to honor the memory of her brother and nephew. Her brother died from drug use and her nephew was shot and killed.

“The thought of my nephew being murdered, the thought of my brother dying to drug use [keeps me going],” McGuire said. “Their deaths won’t be in vain.”

The event hopes to inspire change by bringing the community together for something positive, instead of negative. 

“There’s positivity, there’s support,” Dawn Longfellow, an employee at Wesley Food Pantry, said. “There are people that care, there are people looking out for each other in every neighborhood in Champaign-Urbana, but neighborhoods that have been affected by gun violence and trauma.”

Saturday’s celebration nearly didn’t happen, however. Earlier this month, two teenagers were shot in townhomes adjacent to Wesley Park. 

“When it happened my thought was to cancel,” McGuire said. “I felt the need to move forward no matter what, to take back this area that is deemed violent.”

McGuire and volunteers at the event, like Longfellow, agree the notion that the area is violent is a script that needs to be flipped.

“That’s not what this community is about,” Longfellow said. “There are positive things that happen here as well.”

The Hill Celebration will return next year to continue to inspire change.