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Nearly 100 middle and high schoolers attended the youth-led Mixed Unity Peace Summit at Montgomery College's Takoma Park campus on Saturday to discuss how to avoid the allure of violent street gangs.

Three seminars were hosted at the meeting, including discussions on how to avoid gangs, prevent sexual abuse and reject gender-based violence. The summit comes almost one year after the shooting death of Montgomery Blair High School freshman Tai Lam, who was gunned down on a Ride On bus in Silver Spring Nov. 1 by a member of the MS-13 street gang.

The shooting sparked a wave of activism from his peers, leading to Mixed Unity's formation in the weeks after the 14-year-old's death.

"Even before we get involved in gangs, we feel like it's been ingrained in us," community group leader Kevin Sanchez told students in the anti-gang violence seminar. "Even before we get into all those drive-bys and shootings and gang stuff we have that pain within ourselves that leads to it."

In light of the nature of Lam's death, the gang seminar was particularly popular among summit participants, who were encouraged to share their stories of struggles with gang issues or those of loved ones. Lam's killer, 21-year-old Hector Mauricio Hernandez, was sentenced to 50 years in prison Oct. 8 for the shooting.

Sanchez and fellow Barrios Unidos community leader Juan Pacheco handed out acorns to students to teach them a point about making the personal choice to avoid violence and gang involvement.

"Unlike this acorn, you young people have a choice of where you land," Pacheco said. "No matter who steps on you and holds you down, beats you and hates on you; you have the choice about where you want to plant your roots."

Students have varying opinions regarding the level of violence and intolerance in their schools following the incident and the formation of the movement. Alison Kronstadt, a 17-year-old sophomore at Blair, said fights and violence will always be a challenge in schools, no matter what Mixed Unity accomplishes.

"On some level, things have changed and on some level, high school will always be high school," she said. "The freshmen will always be ‘hey freshman, you punk,' I mean, we just had a fight at our school and the video was put up on Facebook."

Alison's younger brother, Max Kronstadt, 12, was also at the summit. He identified violence and threats against gays and lesbians by some of his fellow classmates at Sligo Middle School. He attended the sexual abuse and gender violence seminar Saturday.

"I've seen lots of kids threatening to beat up other students for their sexual orientation [at Sligo Middle]," he said. "I've tried to talk to people about why they think being gay or lesbian is wrong, but mostly I just try to ignore it. I think after this summit, I will be better prepared to face those [sorts of] problems."

Meanwhile, Blair sophomore Vivian Chacon, 17, said she feels much safer at school this year than she did last year, before and immediately after the shooting.

"The school has stepped up," she said. "They have more security guards; they're actually preventing lots of stuff, and they don't allow iPods or cell phones at all."

Despite Chacon's confidence in school security, she said what happens in schools is only a small part of the overall problem of youth violence. Since the schools have cracked down, troublemakers just wait until school is over and cause problems in the community, she explained.

"You can't act one way when you're in school and then act another way when you're out of school," she said. "They act more violent when they're out of school because inside the school has prevented it."

She hopes that, by working with Mixed Unity, she will help dissuade her peers from allowing hate and anger to lead them astray into gangs and violent acts.

"Our peace summit today, it definitely has made an improvement," she said. "More people are now aware of [Mixed Unity], and more people want to get involved."