BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Several family and friends who lost a loved one due to gun violence will be gathering for the 20th Annual Tree of Life Ceremony Wednesday evening.
The ceremony will provide grieving families with an outlet and a supportive shoulder to cry on.
One mother, Shaunte McMillion, tells 7 News reporter Yoselin Person her son, Marquon Dajore’e Richardson, was killed on May 10th of 2022 while fixing a tire for his father.
The mother says her son had a whole life ahead of him.
“He was a good kid, worked loved by many of people. Wasn’t in the streets,” she says. “He graduated from Hutch Tech. Went to Buff State for a year. He was a good person, and he didn’t deserve what was done to him.”
Karla Thomas, the event’s organizer, says she started this ceremony in 2002 after a spike in homicides in Buffalo.
She also lost a loved one, 28-year-old Thurman Bailey, a security guard at the time, and was killed on the job.
“And it was the first time that anything like that has ever happened in my family so it made this whole event give a different meaning to me,” Thomas says. “Because now I’m not helping them. I’m one of them and I’m helping myself as well to heal.”
Thomas says this year we’re ending with 67 homicides and counting.
She says this event will also focus on the families who lost their loved ones in the Tops Mass Shooting.
“What we looked to do is put people together who have alike experience,” she says. “So they know that they’re in a room full of people who really do know how they feel.”
The event will take place at True Bethel Baptist Church Wednesday, Dec. 14th, from 6 pm to 9 pm.
