CNN reports that a $3 million scholarship fund ‘The Reverend Pinckney Scholarship Fund‘ was created by anonymous donors and announced last week Thursday to be used to help the Charleston Church shooting victims’ families and others affiliated with Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, officials said.
“What a tremendous opportunity to show the world once more and again that goodness of heart overtakes evil, and that we continuously show the world how we respond to a tragedy,” said the Rev. Dr. Norvel Goff, presiding elder at the church. “We didn’t ask for it. It was a horrific situation. It was a terrorist act. It was racist. It was bigotry — all of the above. But through it all, we realize a lesson: It’s not what has happened, truly, but how we respond.”
Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley said the fund was started after a Harvard University professor, Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr., reached out to him shortly after the shooting.
“He said that he had been contacted by people who wanted to be anonymous and wanted to do something to assist those who lost their loved ones,” Riley said.
The mayor said he wasn’t sure how many people had contributed to the $3 million fund, but he said the original donors were from outside South Carolina, according to the report.
This is another way the community is fighting hate with love after nine people were gunned down in a church massacre!
