Dorchester streets flooded with the families of homicide victims, their supporters and the Boston community in an annual show of solidarity in peace and healing early Sunday morning.

The Mother’s Day Walk for Peace, organized by the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, brings the community together on the holiday to “to empower survivors, Generation Peace and communities impacted by murder, trauma, grief and loss to cultivate cycles of peace and healing,” the institute’s website details.

The event has brought advocates and those impacted by violence together for 27 years — going virtual for two years during the pandemic — and was originally inspired after institute-founder Clementina “Tina” Chery lost her 15-year-old son Louis Brown in 1993.

The walk kicked off at Town Field Park at 8 a.m. and followed a 4.3 mile loop through Dorchester. Ahead of the event, organizers estimated around 5,000 attendees.

Marchers held signs with the faces and names of loved ones lost to homicide and messages of hope, healing and peace.

The organization set a fundraising goal of $600,000 ahead of the event, the website says, with the money going towards sustaining the Peace Institute’s services, advocacy and training. As of Sunday evening, just over $440,000 had been raised.

This year’s theme, the institute announced, was “cultivating cycles of peace.”

“In our society, we are constantly looped into cycles of violence that overshadow the transformative power of peace,” the institute wrote. “Like a blooming flower, cycles of peace flourish when carefully cultivated.”