GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — There are just over two weeks left in  2024. Greensboro's Office of Community Safety and its nonprofit partners want to prevent gun violence numbers from going up as we near the end of the year. They want the community to participate in Guns Down December. Last year, Greensboro had a record-breaking number of homicides. The end of the year, based on previous years, is known to see a spike in gun violence. The city’s Office of Community Safety and its partner nonprofits don’t want this same ending for 2024. “We're calling for ... a ceasefire. It's really important to end the year ... strong and keep our numbers down when it comes to losing bodies and losing people,” Gate City Coalition Program Director Ingram Bell said. So far in 2024, there have been 41 homicides in Greensboro compared to 74 last year. The most recent happened in the first week of December. “The concept of ... Guns Down December came from our community-based organizations that we partner with ... wanting to do something to bring awareness to gun violence,” Office of Community Safety Division Manager Latisha McNeil said. One of the city’s nonprofit partners, Gate City Coalition, which is under One Step Further, shares what can sometimes lead to that spike in violent crimes in December. “Holidays are coming around, and kids are very important to families, and so the tension rises because they're concerned about heating and food and being able to provide things for their youth ... that they can't necessarily do ... Sometimes, a way to get to certain things is possibly committing crime,” Bell said. The city attributes the decrease in homicides to these community groups. “I think what we've seen is community buy-in and support, which is so beneficial not only to reducing community violence but also to helping to ... have community feel comfortable speaking out when they see something that they know is not right," McNeil said. In February, Greensboro's Office of Community Safety trained local nonprofits through its Community Violence Intervention and Interruption Project.