A Puerto Rican high-school club on Chicago’s Northwest Side set up 41 candles Thursday to honor area students killed over the past year. The service also had a political goal. From our Humboldt Park bureau, Chicago Public Radio’s Chip Mitchell reports.

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As her classmates lit the candles, Lane Tech junior Samantha Montes read a long list.

MONTES: From Adams High School, 18 years old, Lupita Hernández. From Douglas Academy, 17 years old, Andrik Shaw. From New Millennium High School…  

The students did more than mourn. Senior Chris Rios and many others implored politicians in Springfield to restore state funding for the antiviolence group CeaseFire.

RIOS: No other program goes out to gangs and mediates gang violence and stops guns and shootings that affect us in all communities. 

Governor Rod Blagojevich’s budget cut $6.2 million in grants to CeaseFire. His administration criticized the group’s accounting and asked it to find other funding sources.

CeaseFire says it’s had to lay off more than a 140 workers, including dozens of so-called violence interrupters.

In Humboldt Park, I’m Chip Mitchell, Chicago Public Radio.