Area residents are invited to join a community-wide prayer, which is set for 5 p.m. Sunday on the east (Jefferson Avenue) side of the Union County Courthouse.
With several shootings and other acts of violence that have been reported in the city over the past few weeks, local business owner and community volunteer LaQuita Rainey said she felt compelled to rally the community together in prayer.
Three violent deaths occurred within two weeks of each other -- one, a 16-year-old boy who was gunned down, reportedly as he stood in his backyard on April 22 and the others, a homicide-officer involved shooting in which a 63-year-old man was killed by his nephew, 41, last week.
The younger man was shot by a Union County sheriff's deputy after county and city law enforcement officers responded to a report of a homicide at a residence on West Wesson Street.
A 19-year-old man was struck in the leg in another shooting in the early morning hours of April 24.
Rainey said the prayer event is not expected to last long, adding that local pastors will lead the prayer topics.
The one-day event is similar to the annual 40 Days of Prayer, also a community-wide prayer campaign that lasts for 40 days each fall.
Participants focus on different prayer topics each to help improve the quality of life in El Dorado, including curbing violence.
Rainey said she was inspired, in part, by 40 Days.
"There are a lot of people in this community who are affected by violence and our kids, our kids. They're involved in this and it's affecting our kids," Rainey said.
"I just figured, can we all come together and just take a minute and take a breath to pray for our city and what's going on in our city?" she added.
And the work doesn't end there, Rainey continued.
"I know they say prayer changes things and I know along with prayer, you've got to work. You've got to come up with a plan," she said. "Biblically speaking, faith without works is dead."
For more information, call Rainey at 870-866-6795.