AFTER TOPS SUPERMARKET SHOOTING, BUFFALO BILLS AND NFL FOUNDATION DONATING $400,000 FOR RELIEF EFFORTS.
The money donated will help to address community needs in Buffalo.
The Buffalo Bills Foundation and NFL Foundation are teaming up to support the Buffalo community following Saturday’s supermarket shooting.
On Wednesday, the Bills announced the foundations are donating $400,000 to local response efforts after a gunman opened fire at Tops Friendly Markets, killing 10 people and injuring at least three others.
The team said $200,000 will be donated to the Buffalo Together Community Response Fund, which will address the immediate community needs and “systemic issues that have marginalized communities of color.”
“On behalf of the Buffalo Together Community Response Fund, we are most grateful for the generous contributions from the Buffalo Bills Foundation and the National Football League Foundation that will allow us to create real change and emerge from the darkness of this heinous act,” Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker, president, and CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, wrote in a statement.
“This Fund is a partnership to build upon the collective desire to take action and to work together as a community to address immediate needs, long-term rebuilding, and systemic issues that continue to marginalize communities of color,” the statement continued.
The other $200,000 will be donated by the Buffalo Bills Foundation to nonprofits working on response efforts to address the immediate needs of Buffalo’s East Side community. The team said the efforts will include a partnership with Buffalo Go Green, African Heritage Food Co-op, the Resource Council of WNY, and UB Food Lab for home food deliveries.
The donations come after Bills’ defensive back Micah Hyde announced Sunday that he decided to donate part of the proceeds from a charity softball game to support the victims of the shooting, which is being investigated as a hate crime.
Authorities said 11 of the victims were Black, two were White.
“I still can’t believe it. But when there’s hate in the world, you kind of erase it with love, and coming out here today and showing the community love and love to the youth, love to the community, love to the foundation. I guess that’s the way to combat it,” Hyde said, via ESPN.
The alleged gunman was identified as Payton Gendron, 18, of Conklin, New York. He was charged with first-degree murder and pleaded not guilty Saturday evening.
Bills quarterback Josh Allen said he was thinking of the families affected by the shooting.
“We really haven’t talked as a team yet. We’ll be in the building tomorrow and I’m sure we’ll talk about it and figure out a way to help the situation, help the families out. It’s something that you never think it’s gonna happen in your community and when it does, it hits home,” Allen said.
“I was sick to my stomach all day yesterday. I was flying back from my sister’s graduation, and it was just, it’s gut-wrenching. It really is,” he added. “We’ll talk as a team tomorrow and kind [of] figure out what we want to do, but there’s no doubt that we’re gonna do something.”
