WASHINGTON, Md. (WUSA9) -- Small mom and pop business have come and gone in Southeast Washington's Anacostia neighborhood. But residents are determined to save a small pizza place that's given back so much to the community.

Five years ago, Fatma Nayir opened Mama's Pizza Kitchen at the corner of Martin Luther King Avenue SE and V Street SE. The neighborhood reminded her of her home in Ankara, Turkey.

"You're living in an area that's rough, and we still love this place. Everybody is very supportive," Nayir said.

Since opening her store, Nayir has developed a reputation of helping people through tough times. She also focuses on hiring locally and all seven full-time employees at the shop are from the Anacostia area. 

WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- An increase in violence in the Washington D.C. over the last few weeks prompted community leaders to meet Saturday to come up with long-term solutions to break the cycle.

So far in 2015, there have been 73 homicides in Washington, an increase of nearly 18 percent from this time last year.

For these community leaders, the latest concentration of violent crime has a familiar echo, and their meeting in Anacostia was a familiar solution.

"This has been done in the past, where in 2008 everyone came together and we had four straight years of murder rate going down and violence going down," Ron Moten of the Art of Peace initiative said.

But breaking the cycle is not going to be easy, and the synthetic drug problem is drawing comparisons to the crack epidemic 30 years ago.

Ben Cherington and Kylie Levy of Metropolitan School of the Arts (MSA) Performing Arts Academy of Lorton, Va. and Alexandria, Va. were recently recognized for All-Star Cast by the Virginia Theatre Association Conference for their performances in I Never Saw Another Butterfly. This was the first time Metropolitan School of the Arts had participated in the conference. Cherington, an 11th grader from Burke, Va., and Levy, a 10th grader from Fairfax, Va. are students at Metropolitan School of the Arts. For more information, go to www.metropolitanarts.org.

Metropolitan School of the Arts (MSA) also earned the 2014 Virginia Theatre Association Conference award for Best Costume Design and was recognized for Staging, as well as received an honorable mention for Best Play, I Never Saw Another Butterfly.