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When tragedy strikes, there are two kinds of people who emerge: Those who do nothing, and those who do something. I’m not talking about writing a long, emotional post about how their feelings are hurt and how we need more gun control — I’m talking about actually doing something.
Like Greg Zanis.
Zanis, a retired carpenter, Aurora, Illinois, native, and founder of Crosses for Losses, has made a cross for every fatality in Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas. He left to deliver them on Tuesday.
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According to the Aurora Beacon-News, Zanis is known in his area as a man who makes crosses to commemorate the lives of those killed in mass shooting incidents — including Columbine High School in 1999, the Aurora, Colorado, theater massacre in 2012, and the Orlando night club terrorist attack of 2016. He also made a cross for every person killed in Chicago in 2016.
WGN9 reports that over the 20 years that Zanis has made crosses for people, he’s built more than 20,000.
He first heard about the Las Vegas shooting about 7:30 a.m. Monday from an employee of a firm that handles crime cleanup scenes.
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The man had come to his house with a $1,200 donation for Zanis to do to his work for the latest victims.
“At first, when he told me what happened, I didn’t believe him,” Zanis told the Beacon-News. “And then I just cried.”
Each of the crosses are white, come with a read heart, and carry the name of and a pictures of the victims, according to WGN9. He even makes stars of David for Jewish victims.
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Zanis’ mission is to highlight the severity of what happened that night in Las Vegas.
“I’m trying to bring a face to this,” he said according to LittleThings. “When you see these lined up for 250 feet, it’s going to show the severity of what happened over there.”
He wants that space to be as close to the physical location of the shooting as possible. The official death toll from the Las Vegas massacre stands at 59, but Zanis created 65 crosses, according to the Beacon-News. He always makes a few extra, in case the death toll rises.
He also expects family members of the victims to request duplicates of the crosses for their own memorials, and Zanis has every intention of honoring their requests.
“It gets complicated,” he told the Beacon-News. “But I do it for the families. This does not get easier. My heart is not made of wood.”
If you’d like to know what a real American hero looks like, take a look at Zanis and his mission.
A GoFundMe page has been established for anyone wishing to help. With a fundraising goal of $5,000, it had collected $2,460 as of Thursday afternoon.
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via Conservative Tribune
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