The children who survived the Uvalde, Texas, shooting are now depending on GoFundMe funds to help cover medical expenses as well the costs of therapy.
Last Tuesday, 19 students and two teachers were murdered at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Since then, GoFundMe has compiled nearly two dozen campaigns, organized by families of the Uvalde victims and survivors, here.
The Surviving Children From The Uvalde Shooting Seek Funds For Therapy
In a heartbreaking Miah Cerrillo, 11, told CNN that she witnessed a man enter her classroom and shoot one of her teachers after saying “Good night.”
She recounted seeing the man shoot the second teacher along with many of her friends while bullet fragments struck her in her head and shoulders. Miah recalled hearing screams from the adjoining classroom when the shooter opened fire there.
She and a friend called 911 using their dead teacher’s phone, telling a Uvalde dispatcher, “Please come…we’re in trouble.”
Miah said that she placed her hands in the blood of her dead classmate lying next to her and smeared it all over herself so she could pretend to be dead, afraid the shooter would return.
Miah began crying when recounting to the outlet how she didn’t understand why the police wouldn’t come help them. She said her hair is now falling out in clumps, and her mother added she is unable to sleep.
“[Miah] will need a lot of help with all the trauma that she is going through,” her mother, Abigail Veloz, said in a GoFundMe campaign that has raised nearly $400,000.
“My daughter is [an] amazing person and is a very good sister to her siblings. We will need help with her medical expenses that were caused by the bullet fragment on her back,” Veloz wrote.
Noah Orona, 10, was shot in the back — a bullet exiting at his shoulder. He watched his teacher get fatally shot while she was shielding her students.
His parents told ABC News that Noah had described how he pretended to be dead as he watched his teacher fall on top of another child and die.
His father, Oscar Orona, said that when he got to see his son at the local hospital, Noah apologized to him.
“Dad, I’m sorry,” Noah told his father. “I got blood all over my clothes.”
After his father reassured him that it was OK, Noah told him, “Dad, I lost my glasses too.”
Laura Holcek, Noah’s older sister, wrote that the money she organized in a GoFundMe will go toward his “physical and motor therapies, along with long term cognitive care for the mental trauma of the shooting.”
“Your donation will be gratefully used to help him recover from the mental trauma that has left our little guy with trying to comprehend not only his wounds, but witnessing the suffering of his friends, classmates, and his beloved teachers,” Holcek wrote in the uvalde fundraiser, which has raised more than $128,000 of its $150,000 goal.
A fourth-grader who survived the shooting, Samuel Salinas, recounted the traumatic event to ABC News this past week.
“I played dead so he won’t shoot me,” Samuel said. “He shot my teacher, then he shot the kids. … I think he was aiming at me. I guess one of the chairs was there, so it blocked it and pieces [fell] in my leg.”
In addition to his injury, Samuel is having trouble emotionally processing the attack.
“I kinda don’t feel safe going to school,” he told the outlet. “I feel hurt, and sometimes at night I have nightmares.”
His father, Christopher Salinas, organized a GoFundMe for his son’s “medical expenses and emergency funds for anything he needs during this time.”
Salinas wrote that Samuel was in recovery and the family’s goal was to help him “get through this tragic time as healthy as possible.”
While another survivor of the Uvalde shooting spoke to the Washington Post this past week about seeing his teacher get shot.
“She had some blood on her, but she was, like, whispering, ‘Stay calm. Stay where you are. Don’t move,'” the fourth-grader, Daniel, shared.
Daniel’s mother, Briana Ruiz, shared with the outlet how her son has since experienced nightmares and loss of interest in his usual hobbies. Daniel’s cousin Ellie Garcia was one of the 19 victims.
Daniel said that he used to play combat video games like Fortnite and Wargame but has not been able to since the shooting.
“I don’t like the gunshots and stuff,” he told the publication.
A GoFundMe spokesperson said to Buzzfeed how hundreds of thousands of donors from the US and across the world had raised “millions of dollars for the families and community of Uvalde.”
“We are working around the clock to ensure the families receive the support they need and that funds are delivered quickly and safely,” the statement said.
And on Wednesday, the Community Health Development, a community center in Uvalde, wrote in a Facebook post that it was planning how to address the long-term grief of uvalde residents.
“The CHDI Family is grieving the loss of many family members in the massacre yesterday,” the post said. “We are praying for everyone as we set a plan to address the need for long term grief counseling. We ask for your patience as we grieve and coordinate a united response to help our community.”
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