ST. LOUIS — When Rep. Cori Bush asked a panel of St. Louis high schoolers how many of them had lost someone to gun violence, hands went up.
"Everyone at the table," she said.
Bush was at Sumner High School to launch a new initiative, "Congress In Your Classroom," just days after that student body lost one of their own.
Sophomore Terrion Smith, 16, was shot and killed in the lobby of an apartment building near 15th and Washington in downtown St. Louis.
The students told Bush about their fears over gun violence and trauma.
"I lost my friend a couple of weeks ago. He impacted my life. He was the first person that I called 'big bro,'" Seven Robinson said.
"I was fighting tears because it's like this is what they are facing every day, and this is the work that we have to do to fix this problem," Bush said, referencing the new plan.
Congress in Your Classroom will give every high school in St. Louis two seats at a reoccurring meeting with the Congresswoman, plus a smaller advisory group will tell the representative which initiatives to pursue.
"We need students to know that they can inform policy. They can make a difference now," Bush said.
Bush said she wants students to help lead the change because when she asked how they move past this trauma, as Robinson put it, "the answer is: you can't."
5 On Your Side also talked to the congresswoman about Ukraine since President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to address Congress Wednesday.
Bush is one of one of two House Democrats to vote against the ban on Russian oil saying she did that, in part, because she worries it might lead to more imports instead from Saudi Arabia, and she would like to see more investment in renewable resources.