Ella Pridgen-Best, 58, of Grays Ferry, creator of group Don’t Shoot, I Want a Future

Ella Pridgen-Best, 58, a Grays Ferry activist known for her stand against gun violence on the streets of Philadelphia, died Thursday, April 4, of cancer at Methodist Hospital-Jefferson Health.

In 2007, Mrs. Pridgen-Best got tired of watching the sons of friends die in street violence, so she and husband Norman A. Best founded a neighborhood group called Don’t Shoot, I Want a Future.

The aim is to keep neighborhood children so involved in kickball clinics, gardening, and other projects that they stay off the streets and out of harm’s way.

““I don’t like guns,” she told CBS3 reporter Cherri Gregg in 2015. “Ban all guns.”

But Don’t Shoot wasn’t just campaigning against guns. It also banded with other organizations to feed the hungry. In November 2016, Don’t Shoot helped Anton Moore of Unity in the Community serve Thanksgiving dinner to those without families from a feeding station at Point Breeze Avenue and Dickinson Street.

“I just feel blessed and fortunate that I am able to come out and support this effort, donate, and make sure that we can feed our community,” Mrs. Pridgen-Best told the Philadelphia Tribune.

“Often, we [in the United States] go abroad and feed other people, but most of the time we need to feed the people in our own communities who are hungry,” she said.

Don’t Shoot gave away winter coats to children, stocked book bags with supplies for school students, and gave toys and bikes to neighborhood youngsters at Christmas. Don’t Shoot also took neighborhood children to 76ers games.

“We did a tour of the emergency room at Temple University Hospital to see what happens to kids when they are shot,” her husband said.

“Personally, my favorite program was the basketball clinics we did for 3- to 7-year-olds every summer,” Best said. “That and the kickball clinic. I refused to miss any of those practices.”

Mrs. Pridgen-Best worked for 19 years as an intake clerk at the Berger Montague law firm in Philadelphia while taking night classes at Harcum College. Her 2016 associate degree in human services was awarded with high honors.

She modeled the behavior she hoped to see in others. In December 2015, when a Philadelphia police officer was run over by a suspect fleeing a crime scene in a car, she and her grandchildren applied towels to his wounds until help arrived. The officer survived his injuries.

“I am changing things by being my best self,” she told Gregg.

She was recognized in 2015 with the CBS3 Philly Game Changers Award and with City of Philadelphia citations for volunteerism and community Service.

A Grays Ferry native, Mrs. Pridgen-Best was the daughter of Calister and Queenie Pridgen. She graduated from South Philadelphia High School in 1979.

She was baptized at 19th Street Baptist Church in Philadelphia and mingled with other congregants at the nearby Abundant Life and Empowerment Center.

Mrs. Pridgeon-Best met her husband through a mutual friend. They married in 1997 and raised a family in Grays Ferry. Later, the couple enjoyed traveling the world together.

She enjoyed spending time with family, playing basketball, roller skating, and riding bikes. She also liked to throw block parties and feed people.

In addition to her husband and mother, she is survived by daughters Nydira and Roberta; step-children Darrell and Diana Best; seven grandchildren; a brother; five sisters; and nieces and nephews.

She will be honored posthumously by Unity in the Community at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 11, at Universal Audenried Charter High School, 3301 Tasker St. A life celebration will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, April 12, at the Abundant Life and Empowerment Center, 2600 Tasker St. Interment is in Mount Lawn Cemetery, Sharon Hill.

Donations may be made to Don’t Shoot, I Want a Future, 2742 Sears St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19146.