Annunciation Shooting, One Year Later: What Fletcher Merkel's Parents Want Neighbors To Do

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Thursday marks one year since a gunman opened fire during Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, killing students Fletcher Merkel and Harper Moyski and wounding several others.

Days before the anniversary, Fletcher's family shared a tribute to their son on the GoFundMe fundraiser set up to support them.

"August 27 will mark a year since Fletcher was taken from our lives," they wrote. "Fletcher was many things, energetic, creative, silly, but most of all, he was kind."

The family asked the community to honor him by helping someone in need on Thursday, whether that means donating to a local organization, volunteering, making someone smile, or, as they put it, stopping to help a turtle cross the street. More than $109,000 has been raised through that fundraiser to help the family lay Fletcher to rest and support them going forward.

Harper Moyski's family has not shared a public update through the fundraisers tied to the shooting.

The community has raised more than $4 million overall through GoFundMe in the year since the attack, supporting the families involved, the injured students and the broader Annunciation community.

Updates from families of the injured students describe recovery that is far from over. The parents of Lydia Kaiser wrote this week that Lydia started high school, is playing tennis and was recently in her cousin's wedding, calling her recovery remarkable but noting it has also brought unexpected medical complications still requiring a doctor's attention.

The family of David Haeg, another student injured in the shooting, described a life reorganized around recovery, with dozens of appointments each month, a rotating list of specialists and ongoing changes to their home and routines. They wrote that there is no roadmap for how a child David's age recovers from what he experienced.

Others in the community have found different ways to help the school heal. Laura Sima, a Minneapolis realtor and former pediatric ICU nurse, used her design background to turn a storage room and makeshift office at the school into a dedicated play therapy space and therapist workspace. A GoFundMe for the project raised more than $10,000, and donated furniture, paint and supplies from local businesses helped finish the space just before the start of the new school year.

A full list of verified fundraisers tied to the shooting is available on GoFundMe's centralized hub for the Annunciation community.