CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — Violence across the region threatens lives, families and entire communities. While Hampton Roads grapples with ways to stomp out and wipe out violence there’s another plan to skate it out.

Meet social media sensation Bishop Vance Oldes.

Regina Mobley: You are an O.G. (original gangster: slang term for someone who’s exceptional, authentic or ‘old-school’) on wheels with the Word?

Bishop Vance Oldes: Absolutely. Isn’t that amazing? To be able to share the word of God on skates around the world? I tell you, I give all glory to God for that. Absolutely amazing.

The 58-year-old Maryland-based Bishop knows all about the tricks of the streets. He was arrested while skating back in 1993.

“My addiction started really in the mid-eighties, in my early twenties,” he said during a Zoom interview from his church in Landover, Maryland, “and it progressed and progressed and eventually, I got arrested for the last time in 1993. I was literally selling drugs on skates in the neighborhood and sold to undercover (police) some crack rock. And my journey of recovery started then, so I didn’t get arrested; I got rescued.”

Oldes will skate out the violence at 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10 at the Greenbrier Family Skating Center in Chesapeake. The event was organized by Monica Atkins of Stop the Violence 757.

“You have to reach people at their level and you have a lot of people out there who love the skates,” he said, “and they are probably not on the right path, and everybody coming to this skating event is not on the right path. I pray that he says something that reaches the community or the individual that needs it.”

The Atkins family has suffered over the years due to gun violence. Monica’s niece was gunned down in September in a harrowing scene that was captured on video. The Bishop will roll into town with a message on how to save our future.

“Well, when I roll into town, I’m literally sharing with the people that being a Christian does not always mean religious activity — that you can have fun, you can be free,” Oldes said. “You can live life for Jesus, who said that he’ll come, that you may have life and have it more abundantly. And so, I believe the freedom in skating will allow others to see that there’s freedom in all hobbies and activities that you can get involved with and still give God glory.”

Tickets start at $20 and can be purchased from Eventbrite.