We are not needy Family of slain mom, kids says GoFundMe account was created because people wanted to help
Although a GoFundMe page has been set up to pay for the funeral of three people who were killed in Hanover recently, a relative is insisting that the family is not in need. Instead, Natalie Cunningham, the eldest sister of the pregnant woman who was chopped to death along with two of her children, said that the account was set up mainly for persons who had began to reach out in the aftermath of the tragic, April 25 incident.
“It’s not that we needed any help or anything like that. It is just that we have good friends and we are good with people and they offered to donate money towards it [funeral], so that is how the GoFundme came about,” she told THE STAR.
She noted that her cousin is a funeral director so money wouldn’t be an issue.
But, Marsha Wallace, the woman whose name in which the GoFundMe account dubbed ‘Three Angels Fund’ was created, noted that a pregnant Adanique Cunningham died leaving two children who need the money.
FINANCIAL WEALTH
“If we were to make J$2.5 million, which probably might have been more than the cost of the burial, there are two more children that don’t have a mother. A trust would have ultimately been set up so that these children can continue to go to school,” she told THE STAR.
The two children are ages 14 and 15, both students of Rusea’s High School. She pointed out that the children have been receiving counselling following the slaying of their mother and siblings.
Wallace is adamant that the aim of the GoFundMe account was not set up for an individual to gain any financial wealth.
“Had we hit the US$20,000 (J$2,512,176) when we receive the final bill from the funeral home, the money would be less than J$2.5 million and there would be residual money. No one was going to pocket the money,” she said.
Wallace, who is a childhood friend of Natalie Cunningham, felt that she had an obligation to help the family by setting up the GoFundMe account.
THREE INNOCENT SOULS
“The page was set up to target anybody who felt compelled to give, knowing and understanding the circumstances that these individuals passed away under,” Wallace added.
With the aim of giving 38-year-old Adanique Cunningham, Jayanna, seven, and Shanique, four, who she calls ‘three innocent souls’, a burial fit for a queen and princesses, she noted that the amount US$2,127 (J$267,169) raised from 46 donations in nine days was from persons who sympathised with the family.
“The people who have given so far, the goal is no issue. If they had done the calculations they would have got the $2.5 million but they were not deterred by that, they still gave their money because they realised that the family is in need,” she said.
However, Natalie Cunningham said that the family has not started to make funeral plans as yet.
“We didn’t do no funeral arrangements as yet because we are still waiting on the autopsy. We hear that people a dead like bird dung a Westmoreland, so we have a long wait fi do the autopsy,” she said.