The Peoria-based nonprofit JOLT Harm Reduction is recovering after a vandalism incident Tuesday night.
According to JOLT CEO Chris Schaffner, a car of four men stopped abruptly in front of the organization’s Sheridan Road location around 7 p.m. and began firing paintball guns at the front windows. Schaffner said one of the organization’s participants was in the line of fire and left with bruises.
“My building can be fixed and painted and wiped down,” said Schaffner. “But the scar of thinking you’re being shot at and not knowing that it was just kind of a toy gun was frightening and very traumatic to the individual that was impacted.”
Schaffner said JOLT is providing the man with mental and emotional support. The man told Schaffner he believed the vandals were young adults and were not anyone he knew, or who participated in the JOLT organization.
The organization’s windows are clear now, but some bricks still may require power washing. Schaffner said it translates to extra time spent and cost for his organization.
JOLT provides harm reduction services like support groups, sexual health testing and education and other programs to help reduce negative health outcomes linked to addiction and poverty.
Schaffner said the vandalism comes at a stressful time for the organization. The work the agency does already is sensitive — preventing overdoses and other harm — but federal funding also is in question as the Trump administration makes broad cuts to grants.
“We have some federal pass-through dollars right now, all of our lead agents for our grants are saying, ‘We just don’t know much about how that’s going to trickle down,’” said Schaffner. “Their hope is, if it cuts anything, it’ll be bureaucratic fat at the top and leave those who are doing the actual work alone.”
Schaffner said it’s also concerning because the organization explicitly operates in the space of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion).
Schaffner does not believe the attack was specifically targeted and said other locations in Peoria have experienced similar incidents.
“There have been some reports that down in the North Valley, there was one other location, the Porch Pantry, that there were some similar incidents, so it doesn’t seem like they were targeting Jolt or this particular participant,” he said.
Schaffner said it’s disheartening that anyone, particularly young people, would choose nonprofits as opportunities for vandalism. However, he cautions against painting an image of Peoria’s juvenile and young adult community with a broad brush based on this incident.
“When young people are out here with no real economic pathways forward, with limited mental health support, a complete lack of mentors and a system that over-polices people and under invests in their communities, this is what happens,” Schaffner said. “People act out of pain and out of frustration and out of boredom in a world that’s made it really damn hard for them to find purpose and a pathway out.”
The organization and the impacted individual will not be pressing charges, or requesting a further police investigation into the incident. Schaffner said with no structural damage and the participant not seriously injured, he wants to send a different message to the perpetrators.
“I would just invite them to come here and see what we do, just spend a day or two with us, no judgement, no shame, nobody can give them any grief whatsoever about what they did,” he said. “I’d just like to expose them to the people we serve and the work that we do because I think that is transformative.”
