Family and friends of the teacher and student killed in Monday’s school shooting in ºüÀêÊÓƵ are asking well-wishers who want to help to contribute to two fundraisers.
One is a launched to cover funeral expenses for Alexzandria Bell, 15. Alexzandria was a sophomore at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School who was shot to death during Monday’s rampage.
Another is linked to Jean Kuczka, a longtime physical education and health teacher at Central who was fatally shot inside the school. Kuczka’s daughter, Abigail Kuczka, said her mom loved bicycle riding and raising money in the annual Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation ride.
People are also reading…
Jean Kuczka’s JDRF Ride fundraising page can accept donations , and has raised $12,500 by Wednesday morning. The fundraiser says it helps pay for research for Type 1 diabetes, with which one of Kuczka’s two adult sons was diagnosed when he was 10 years old.
“We appreciate the outpouring of love and support for our family and loved ones during this sad, tragic time,†Abigail Kuczka said in an email Tuesday.
Abigail Kuczka said another fund making the rounds on the day after the murders was not endorsed by her family. The diabetic research fund is the one she said the family is advocating.
In early December, Kuczka was planning to ride to Amelia Island in Florida with her husband on the sidelines, cheering her on.
The gunman broke a window of a door to enter Central Visual and Performing Arts and Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience, a two-school campus at Arsenal Street and South Kingshighway near Tower Grove Park.
He came into Kuczka’s classroom, Room 323, and Kuczka went in front of him to protect the students, her daughter was told. Alexzandria was found shot in the hallway of the Collegiate School.
Kuczka lived in Dittmer and made the 40-mile drive each weekday to teach at the school on South Kingshighway in ºüÀêÊÓƵ. She was married, had five grown children and six grandchildren, and was looking forward to retiring in a few years, her daughter said.
Alexzandria lived in the 5200 block of Davison Avenue in the city’s Walnut Park East neighborhood. She was attending Central high school to learn interpretive dance, said the fundraiser’s organizer, Kevin Quick, a friend and colleague of Alexzandria’s father.
Quick said Alexzandria did not know the gunman who roamed the school with an AR-15-style rifle and 600 rounds of ammunition, killing Alexzandria and Kuczka and injuring six students. Friends described Alexzandria as always smiling, and her principal said she was a bright and charismatic student.
Quick said the girl’s mother is struggling with her daughter’s death and trying to wrap her head around the fact that she was gunned down in a school, which should be a safe environment.
“She was going there to learn dancing interpretation,†Quick said. “She wasn’t skipping school or running around. She was killed just trying to get an education.â€
Quick said money raised will be turned over to Alexzandria’s father to help with funeral expenses and any “unforeseen expenses due to this tragedy.†The fund’s goal was $10,000, but it already had passed $11,000 by Wednesday morning.
Police stormed the building and confronted the gunman, Orlando Harris, within minutes of the “active shooter†call. Police killed Harris in an exchange of gunfire in a third-floor room, next to the library. No officers were hurt.