DES MOINES, Iowa — It's been 9 months since the deadly school shooting in Perry, and now some victims of the tragedy are finally receiving funds donated by the community.
Three people were in charge of distributing $160,000 donated to the victims of the Perry school shooting. The distribution recovery fund says 20 applications were received and everyone who applied got a portion of the funds.
The board first approved the amount of $20,317 to the family of 11-year-old Ahmir Joliff, who died in the shooting.
The board will allocate $30,000 to four families, with one of those amounts being split between two families. Three families received payments of $5,000 and six families and Perry staff members received $2,000. $1,850 was given to seven families and staff members.
Louis Hoger is the leader of the group. He and the board looked at both physical and emotional trauma.
"My goal was to be able to assess the trauma of each person who applied and to be able to give a share of those proceeds according to the trauma they might have experienced," Hoger said.
Hoger hopes people know the intentions of the funds.
"Part of those funds is an acknowledgment. An acknowledgment of their trauma, an acknowledgment that the people of Perry cared about them that much," Louis Hoger said.
However, Hoger shared that assessing the levels of trauma was much more difficult than the board expected.
"We did give $40,000 to the people who had experienced physical trauma by having the shotgun pellets in their bodies; then we looked at the other's trauma experiences that the others had," Hoger said.
It took the board several months to come to a decision. Hoger said this had a lot to do with coordinating both the applicants' and the board's schedules, though all 20 people who applied walked away with a share of the proceeds.
"The law says that we would allocate those funds to the rightful owners. They are the rightful owners of those funds," Hoger said.
Hoger said he expected some hard feelings, regardless of the board's decision, but he understands their emotions.
"Whenever you have fear or pain, you have anger. You don't have anger without fear or pain. They are the opposite side of the coin, so I know there will be a lot of anger because of the pain,"
And to the ones who donated to the victims, Hoger said they made a difference in people's lives.
"The citizens of Perry, particularly those who donated funds to that recovery fund, will feel like the greatest effort was made to show their concern for those families' children and parents," Hoger said.
The board says it will not disclose any additional information to the public regarding students, their families and the approach it took during the interviews for these funds.