A group working to reduce and prevent violence in McKees Rocks is getting the jump on NCAA’s annual March Madness with a basketball tournament of its own.
The event, which will take place Saturday, March 14, at the Sto-Rox High School gymnasium, will bring together violence reduction and prevention groups from around Allegheny County to celebrate their efforts, match skills on the court and allow the community to get to know them.
The tournament is the brainchild of Rick Jackson, a community program manager for Focus on Renewal, a McKees Rocks-based nonprofit social services provider that heads the Sto-Rox Community Violence Reduction Initiative, or CVRI. The initiative is a public health-driven strategy supported by the county Department of Human Services.
The Sto-Rox community was one of five designated as CVRI priority areas, and FOR was named to oversee the local effort. Playing significant roles in the initiative along with FOR are the McKees Rocks Community Development Corp., Pittsburgh Area Community Schools and Zellous Hope.
Officials involved in the effort were proud to announce earlier this year that the Sto-Rox community did not see a single gun-related homicide in 2025 just four years after 11 such homicides took place.
Kevin Platz, FOR’s executive director, at that time called the reduction in gun-related violence “a profound shift for Sto-Rox” and pointed to strong partnerships as a big reason for the turnaround.
Platz said the March 14 basketball tournament will give the groups in McKees Rocks a chance to rub shoulders with groups working on similar issues elsewhere in the county.
“This is a community-connecting event,” he said. “It’s a chance for different communities going through the same types of issues to come together on a common thing – this happens to be basketball – and do something.
“Too many times we’re kind of isolated and siloed in some of the things happening inside a community and think, ‘That’s a McKeesport issue or that’s a Homewood issue or that’s a McKees Rocks issue.’ But the fact is, it’s an everywhere issue.”
Jackson said the March 14 event will allow those working in the prevention trenches to get to know their cohorts from around the county. And it will also give people who live in those communities a chance to come together as well.
Jackson said the event will start at 4 p.m. and games should start at about 5 p.m. Food and drinks will be available for purchase but admission to the tournament itself is free.
Jackson said he came up with the one-day tournament idea “so people can see and know who in the community is doing the work – not just in Sto-Rox but all over the county.”
“Everything we do in community work is based on relationships,” he added.
Jackson said a wide range of community assets – everything from banks and credit unions to local media – were invited to attend the March 14 event.
“When you have events like this, you want to bring new people in,” he said.
For example, he said Key Bank and Clearview Federal Credit Union were invited so people can learn how easy it is to open a bank account.
“A lot of people don’t know,” Jackson said. “If you bring it to them and show them there’s a way to do things, they tend to look at things a little differently.”
Jackson knows all about that. He grew up in nearby Westgate Village and attended Steel Valley and the former Langley high schools but got sidetracked and wound up spending 15 years in prison. He was released 12 years ago, found a job at UPMC – where he still works on weekends – and started working for FOR three years ago as a community program manager.
Jackson said he didn’t find it difficult to readjust to life on the outside. “To get reacclimated is a mindset,” he said. “When you get ready to come home, you have to prepare yourself. You have to have a plan and know what you’re going to do.”
Platz said that Jackson brings “real-life experience” to his job and offers a point of view that Platz and others cannot.
“Rick can stand in front of you and say, ‘If you do this, this is what will happen,’” Platz said. “Myself, I come from a farm. I don’t bring that perspective to things. He does.
“He’s incredibly respected, not only in the Sto-Rox community but all the communities across the county because he does bring that. He’s incredibly bright and incredibly caring.”
Sto-Rox’s CVRI effort includes several components, including a program implemented by FOR that provides transitional employment and support services for at-risk individuals. Another component, known as CURE Violence Sto-Rox, is implemented by Pittsburgh Area Community Schools (PACS) and deploys trained outreach workers to interrupt conflicts and engage individuals at highest risk.
Platz said part of Jackson’s job is to serve as a liaison between different communities.
“Rick connects,” he said. “His job is to find out who has beef with whom.”
Platz said that just recently, the “boots on the ground” – or violence interrupters, as he calls them – learned that an old beef between the Sto-Rox and Clairton communities had resurfaced. “But we were able to get in front of it,” he said.
Jackson said he enjoys his role with FOR, whether it’s meeting with groups working to reduce violence or organizing what he calls “sidewalk and serve” events, where he’ll pull out a grill and offer free hot dogs, hamburgers and drinks to people as they ride past. The first such event took place last August and he hopes to do more this summer.
“The response was tremendous,” he said. “We’re in neighborhoods where some people don’t eat. They can come out and get a nice meal, voice their concerns and we can let them know about all the things we have going on.”
Jackson said working in a community services setting comes naturally to him, as his father ran a community center for 40 years.
“I was born into this,” he said. “Life takes a turn sometimes, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Everything I went through prepared me for who I am today.
“God sends you and puts in you in places where he wants you to be, and now I’m doing his work.”
Jackson said that while the statistics that showed zero gun-related homicides in the Sto-Rox community in 2025 is no small accomplishment, he added that it’s only the beginning.
“We don’t want to stop working or work the same way,” he said. “We want to work harder. But is our message getting through? For sure. We walk these streets on the daily. We see it, we live it. This is our life.”
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