Members of Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past joined the community Saturday to remember the lives of those lost to violent crime across the valley.

The group installed a bench at Glenwood park in Youngstown with the inscription, "peacefully remember those whose lives were taken by violence," to call attention to the situation and to the reality of violent crime.

"It's just a way of telling the community to just peacefully, peacefully remember these people and not violently remember," said Penny Wells, executive director of Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past.

Sojourn to the past presented the personas of those who have violently lost their lives in recent years, recreating in their way, the final thoughts of people like three month old Tariq Morris and his parents 19 year old Valarcia Blair and 21 year old Edward Morris, as well as 10 year old Persayus Davis-May, four year old Rowan Sweeney and 16 year old Isaiah Walker, just to name a few.

"My name is Rowan and I was gonna be five in 12 days," the group read together. "I heard loud banging noises, they were shots ringing out," they read.

This display of final thoughts so powerful, it brought tears to the eyes of community members in attendance. One in particular, Alexandra Dawson, says it was the release she needed, as she too, lost her son to gun violence back in 2005.

"A house was getting shot up and a bullet pierced him in the back of the head and killed him instantly," Dawson said. "From the first person that they represented, all the way through, I didn't know I needed that, like I'm crying, like I could not stop crying," she said.

"I just gotta make it home, I just gotta make it home," the group echoed, pertaining to the day Isaiah Walker was shot at a park in Youngstown, then ran home before he collapsed on his family's porch.

Others in the crowd like Tonia Archie, a woman who said she raised Walker starting from when he was just six years old, reflected on the past and was happy to see young adults speaking up about violent crime.

"I never, never wanted Isaiah to be at Homestead Park. That was a place I said I never wanted him at because it was just so many shootings down there," Archie said. ""There needs to be police in the parks to monitor the parks. The cameras need to be up to date," she said.

Members of Sojourn to the Past also getting emotional as they've violently lost friends themselves, like 19 year old Kylearia "Kylea" Day, who was shot and killed on I-680 in Youngstown back in January.

"I've known Kylearia since the sixth grade actually and we graduated together, you know she was doing journalism and she changed schools, I think she was going to go to Columbus and finish up with her schooling and then she didn't get the chance to," said Miah Pierce of Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past. "It just doesn't sound right, you never think your friend is going to die. The grieving process never gets easier, you just learn to live with it," she said.

"This is a big step forward in acknowledging the violence that goes on in Youngstown," said Brittany Bailey of Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the past. "You talk about it, but like no one actually acknowledges why it's so bad," she said.

The group wants this bench to be more than a tool for healing and peace within the community, but they also want to bring awareness to the amount of murders that happen around this valley, and how many families are affected by them.