Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The 5/14 Memorial Commission on Tuesday shared its survey report findings of 1,300 respondents within the Buffalo community for a probable physical memorial to honor the lives of 10 deceased victims and the survivors of the racially motivated mass shooting at the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue.
"Our job is to make sure our community is heard," said 5/14 Memorial Commission Chair Reverence Mark Blue. "And we want to make sure that through this survey, everybody's voice is counted, the families as well. So it's very important to us that we addressed the needs of our community."
The survey, which was created and conducted with the assistance of JRB Insights, Insights America, University at Buffalo Regional Institute and Buffalo State University, showed that 87% of the respondents are in favor of a physical memorial and a majority of the respondents (88%) agreed that the memorial should be located at or near the Tops on Jefferson Avenue.
"We followed that up with: 'Are you in favor of a non-material physical memorial? A little more than half said 'Yes'," noted Jim Bachwitz, President of JRB Insights. "There were things such as poster or essay contest scholarships, annual days of collective community service, etc. Not as strong [interest] as that physical memorial, that was loud and clear."
In addition, many people gave insight as to the main messages of the memorial, the most frequent was Remembrance (82%) followed by Healing (65%) followed closely by Love over Hate at 62%.
The respondents of the survey where almost equally split amongst the following three categories by region: East Buffalo Residents: 32%; Buffalo Residents Outside of East Buffalo: 34%; Erie County Residents Outside Buffalo: 29%. The other 4% were people outside of Erie County.
But how much will this memorial cost? Reverend Mark Blue anticipates this project could potentially cost millions.
"We did express an amount of roughly, I think, 10 to 12 million. But again, once we have a design, we can go on a type of campaign to help raise the rest of those funds, there are entities that want to give, but they want to give to something, not something that's just up in the air. So as we go forward in this, you'll see more progress being made and the results will be be phenomenal. We're looking forward to it."
New York State has already allocated $900,000 for the project.
"We've already started the fundraising effort, the city is going to make a commitment as well, private sector entities have made commitments," said Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown.
Those who were in attendance, including Michelle Spight, who lost both her aunt, Pearl Young, and her cousin Margus Morrison, during public comment mentioned that they or their family members didn't have the survey readily available to them and felt that they shouldn't have had to look for the survey to fill it out. Reverend Blue said he has been in regular contact with family members of the Jefferson 10 and the survivors, and will continue to update families, including Spight's family, on the ongoing process.
"Any type of loss of a family, especially that's been as tragic as this, is going to have an emotional toll. There's no time limit on the grieving process, I want to make that clear. Some people could not even do the survey because of that process. So even now, when I look at this, the whole committee has been going through a change. This has been an emotional roller coaster for us. Every time we get together, where we're seeing not only the results, but we're also feeling the passion of what's going on, because we've suffered loss as well in our families and sometimes it just brings it right back up," said Reverend Blue.
As far as next steps, there are no definite timetables.
"We did put out request for submission for concept ideas. We're going to be going through that and we'll come back with another community meeting to let you know how that progress has been going," says Rev. Blue. "We want to make sure that we hear from the community so every step of the process will be brought back to the community for them to hear and to take part in."