If you see D.C.’s professional athletes wearing orange at their games in the next few days, it’s for a good reason: raising public awareness about gun violence in the District and local efforts to prevent it.

All the local sports teams — the Nationals, the Commanders, the Mystics, the Wizards, the Capitals, D.C. United, the Washington Spirit, and DC Shadow (that would be D.C.’s women’s ultimate frisbee team) — are joining in the initiative that coincides with the start of Gun Violence Awareness Month in June.

This weekend, most teams will wear orange warm-ups at games or practices with the word “ENOUGH,” and several will honor gun violence prevention advocates before games or during halftime. The Mystics and D.C. United will observe moments of silence for the victims of gun violence.

The teams are also contributing $100,000 to Peace For DC, an organization that trains and offers support to the District’s violence interrupters, with the goal of reducing gun-related homicides by 60% in five years. The organization will also be the beneficiary of the proceeds of the Nationals’ 50-50 raffle at the team’s game on Saturday, as well as an individual donation from D.C. United.

The teams will also share information about gun violence with fans via official social media pages throughout the weekend. Most plan to offer fans ways to donate to gun violence prevention organizations.

“The professional sports teams of Washington D.C. are proud to come together and say ENOUGH,” the teams said in a joint statement. “We ask our fans and community partners to stand with us as we work with Peace For DC to create a better, safer city for everyone.”

“I hope that we recognize the importance of this issue, the importance of this being accepted as an all-of-us issue,” says Marcus Ellis, the executive director at Peace For DC, who has spent two decades doing anti-violence work in the District. “This isn’t a Black issue, it isn’t a white issue. Anybody can be impacted by gun violence.”

Peace For DC is led by a group of Washingtonians with deep ties to communities most affected by gun violence — and a shared frustration with the sluggishness of the government response to it. The organization’s leadership team blends extensive experience from inside government with work in advocacy. It includes Lashonia Thompson-El, who previously ran the Office of the D.C. Attorney General’s violence interrupter program, and Rachel Usdan and Roger Marmet, who worked with Moms Demand Action’s D.C. chapter before founding Peace For DC.

Peace For DC uses private philanthropy to train and support the city’s violence interrupters, a group of several hundred trusted community members who try to intervene in conflicts before they become violent or before they escalate further. The ultimate vision is to create a network of community-based and community-led organizations that don’t just stop violence, but also offer wraparound services like educational opportunities, housing stability, and mental health care to people who are most likely to be engaged in it.

Ellis hopes sports fans will come away from the events this weekend with an understanding that D.C.’s strategy to combat gun violence is far more than “a strictly law enforcement approach.”

“We want to make sure to give our peacemakers, our violence interrupters, their flowers,” he says. “Hopefully throughout this campaign, folks will learn a lot more about these dedicated community services.”

Ellis says the $100,000 from the teams and the money Peace For DC raises from the Nationals’ 50-50 raffle will go towards two key programs: it will fund the group’s DC Peace Academy, the ongoing training and support program for violence interrupters, and it will help with the Life Transformation Program, a new yearlong project to put a suite of community services into two neighborhoods with a history of feuding against each other.

And he wants people to know that these programs have shown real promise, in D.C. and nationally. (Experts are embarking on a comprehensive review of D.C.’s two violence interruption efforts, which operate out of the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement.)

Raising awareness of community violence interruption work is especially significant, Ellis says, in the context of rising concerns and rhetoric about crime.

“Headlines will make people fearful,” he says. “It’s important to know that there are real solutions being implemented.”

It’s not the first time D.C. sports teams have gotten involved in Gun Violence Awareness month, though Ellis says this year is unprecedented in the scale and participation across organizations.

The Mystics, including star guard Natasha Cloud, have an especially long history of speaking out about gun violence in their hometown.

“D.C. is a huge part of my heart. It’s a second home for me,” Cloud told The Kojo Nnamdi Show in 2019 after organizing a team-wide media blackout to draw attention to gun violence. “This community matters to me. These kids matter to me.”

This year is the Mystics’ fifth year wearing orange in early June to draw attention to the issue, and the team will also honor a Moms Demand Action leader at their Friday night game against the Dallas Wings. Cloud herself is hosting a private meet-and-greet with Moms Demand Action volunteers, and the Mystics are holding a pre-game youth clinic for gun violence survivors.

D.C. sporting events aren’t the only events this weekend seeking to raise public understanding of gun violence in the District. Youth advocacy organization T.R.I.G.G.E.R Project, in partnership with local advocacy groups like Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, will host its third annual End Gun Violence Citywide Festival on Friday, June 2 in Freedom Plaza.

Gun Violence Awareness Month comes at the start of the summer, a season that typically sees an increase in violence. As of early April, nearly 80 people had died by homicide in D.C., a 9% increase compared to 2022 and the deadliest first four months of the year in the past decade.

This story has been updated to correct information about Peace For DC’s funding sources.