Barbecue raises funds for scholarship honouring Toronto shooting victim
TORONTO — A barbecue was held in an east-end Toronto park on Wednesday to raise money for a scholarship in honour of a woman killed in a mass shooting that rocked the city a month ago.
Eighteen-year-old Reese Fallon was killed when a gunman shot at pedestrians and restaurant-goers on Toronto’s bustling Danforth Avenue the night of July 22. Ten-year-old Julianna Kozis also died in the violence and 13 people were injured. The shooter, 29-year-old Faisal Hussain, was also found dead in the area.
Crowds of people attended Wednesday’s event at Bob Acton Park, just a five-minute walk from where Fallon went to high school at Malvern Collegiate Institute.
The money raised will go to the Reese Fallon Scholarship Fund and the Fallon family, organizers said. Fallon had just graduated high school and was set to study nursing at McMaster University in Hamilton starting this fall. The scholarship will go each year to a graduate of Malvern Collegiate who is entering a nursing program.
Hundreds of people attended the open-air event, where tables were filled with gift bags for raffle and auction. Organizers also ran an online auction, selling such items as a guitar signed by the Sam Roberts Band and VIP tickets to a Toronto FC soccer match.
Julie Steel, a family friend of the Fallons who organized the barbecue and started a crowdfunding page to raise money for the scholarship, said she was blown away by the donations received.
“It means a lot to the family,” she said. “They want to make sure she’s not going to be forgotten.”