CHICAGO — A "Celebration of Life" ceremony for slain Columbia College student Kevin Ambrose has been scheduled.
"We're not referring to it as a funeral, memorial or anything like that," said his mother, Ebony Ambrose. "Kevin lived too much life for us to sit around wasting time concentrating on his death."
The event is set to be held at the Gary Comer Youth Center, 7200 S. Ingleside Ave., at 11 a.m. May 26.
Details are still being hashed out about, but the venue was chosen by the Ambrose family and a number of organizations that Kevin Ambrose was connected to including Kenwood Academy, his high school, and YouMedia, a Chicago Public Library program that served as a forum for a memorial the day after his death.
The Gary Comer Youth Center "seemed like the appropriate place to have a celebration of life. We're not a funeral home," said Ayoka Samuels, the center's senior program director. "We want young people to come and see a positive place and not a place of sorrow."
The ceremony will be held nearly three weeks after the 19-year-old Ambrose was shot to death on his way to escort a friend from the 47th Street Green Line Station to his home less than two blocks away.
Jerome Brown, a 26-year-old man who recently served just 10 months of an eight-year prison sentence before being granted parole, was charged with murdering Ambrose.
Authorities haven't offered a motive regarding the slaying of Ambrose, a theater student who was working at the City Target in The Loop at the time of his death.
