In the aftermath of Sunday morning’s shooting at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, organizers of a grassroots fundraising campaign hope to assist members of the local Sikh community. They promise all money raised will help defray medical and funeral costs for the victims and their families.
Campaign organizers have set up a website for contributions through the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, and they’re spreading word of the drive through social media. Updates posted on the website indicated that more than 300 donors had pledged nearly $30,000 shortly after 1 p.m. Monday, prompting the original goal of $25,000 to be bumped to $75,000.
Darsh Singh, 25, is one of the fundraising drive’s organizers. Although he lives and works in Fort Worth, Texas, he’s connected to the Milwaukee Sikh community through his wife, Lakhpreet Kaur, whose family attends the Sikh temple in Brookfield. The two married in Milwaukee last summer and her brother, Paramveer Singh, is a recent Marquette University graduate.
Authorities say Wade Michael Page killed six people and critically wounded three others. Oak Creek police officer Brian Murphy was among those wounded before another officer shot and killed Page. Once word of the shooting spread, Darsh says he and some friends quickly came up with the fundraising idea and put the plan in motion.
“We just kind of got together and said, ‘Let’s do something,’” Singh says. “From far away, it’s hard to do stuff, but it helped with me having connections directly to the community. We’re just sort of heartbroken and want to do anything we can to help them rebuild the community.”
Darsh says members of the Milwaukee Sikh community will be directly involved in the money’s distribution, likely through a local memorial fund that’s been set up at Tri City Bank. “People have trusted us with their money,” Darsh says. “We want to direct it 100 percent to the folks who need it.”
In the meantime, he notes that the initial support has been overwhelming.
“It’s been something beautiful, to say the least,” he says. “It’s been humbling. The acts of kindness and compassion around the nation and the amount of support we get in situations like this is wonderful. The American community sees who we are – Americans.”
