More than 1,600 apply to receive share of Parkland victims’ fund

$8.8M will go to anyone on campus during shootings

More than 1,600 people applied to receive a share of the Stoneman Douglas Victims’ Fund.

Thursday was the deadline to submit applications for people affected by the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. The National Compassion Fund plans to verify eligibility of the applicants throughout June and distribute the money beginning July 16.

As of Friday, just under $8.8 million had been collected from 36,440 donors.

The application period opened May 1, just after the steering committee overseeing the fund announced that everyone who was on campus during the shootings would be eligible for a share of the donations.

The fund, which will be distributed as gifts with no strings attached, was started the day after the shootings by the Broward Education Foundation, the primary fundraising arm of Broward County Public Schools.

In late April, the Stoneman Douglas steering committee approved dividing the money among victims in four categories, in descending order of impact.

Estates of the 17 deceased victims will get the largest shares, followed by vic-

tims who were shot or grazed by bullets. The thirdlargest shares will go to people who were inside the school’s 1200 building, and the smallest shares will go to anyone else on the campus during the shooting.

The number of victims in each category, as well as the amount to be allocated to each category, won’t be known until the applicants are verified and the donation period closes at the end of June, the committee said.

Nineteen people applied to receive donations as personal representatives of the 17 people who were killed. Because each victim’s estate can only appoint a single representative, that means family members of two of the deceased victims “are still working out” or may be in disagreement over who will be those victims’ personal representatives, said RaeAnn Dietlin, the National Compassion Fund’s mass violence response specialist.

According to protocols approved by the steering committee, failure to reach agreement over who will serve as personal representative will result in the victim’s share being deposited with the probate court, which would then mediate the dispute.

Identities of the applicants are confidential, Dietlin said.

Twenty-one people applied for shares of benefits to be divided among victims struck or grazed by gunshots, including all 17 victims listed in the indictment against the accused shooter, Dietlin said.

Of the remaining applicants, 497 said they were inside the 1200 building during the shootings, and 1,111 said they were not inside the building but on the campus.

In a series of town hall meetings convened in April to solicit opinions about how the money should be divided, numerous participants who were on the campus but not in the 1200 building during the shootings said they were dealing with lingering effects of trauma.

They urged the steering committee not to adopt its original proposal to limit eligibility to people who were inside the 1200 building.

The 1,648 applicants represent about half of the 3,200 people estimated by the school district to have been on campus during the shooting — but the total is hundreds more than the number of victims who received shares of funds created after mass shootings at Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016 or at a country music festival in Las Vegas in October.

Funds created after each of those shootings raised about $30 million, but the number of people killed and hospitalized was also greater.

In Orlando, 299 victims received a share of $29.5 million, including heirs of 49 who were killed ($350,000 each); 37 who were hospitalized with serious injuries ($65,000 to $300,000 each, depending on hospital stay lengths); 31 who sought outpatient treatment ($35,000 each); and 182 who were present in the nightclub ($25,000 each), according to data provided by the National Compassion Fund.

In Las Vegas, 532 victims received a share of $31.5 million, including heirs of 68 killed, brain damaged or paralyzed ($275,000 each); 147 who were hospitalized ($17,500 to $200,000, depending on hospital stay lengths); and 317 who sought outpatient treatment ($7,900 each).