On May 14, 2022, the City of Buffalo’s history was rewritten. It was a new chapter of darkness born from a racially motivated mass shooting at 1275 Jefferson Avenue: A Tops Supermarket, one of very few large grocers on the city’s predominantly Black East Side.
With Buffalo on the world stage, thousands of people poured in condolences, tributes and promises to help devastated members of its community. They also poured in money. Lots of it.
But four years after the attack that claimed 10 lives, injured three others and left lasting harm across Buffalo’s Black community, some of those most affected are still asking: What is there to show for all of the promises and, more importantly, the money?
This is Part I of our investigative series titled "Where Did The Money Go?"
"How Can We Help?"
Something happened on Buffalo’s East Side four years ago the community could never have prepared for.
Days after May 14, 2022, thousands of people flocked to a side of town most go out of their way to avoid. The streets were lined with caution tape, news cameras, makeshift memorials, food distribution sites. The eyes of the world were on a neighborhood its own city had ignored for decades.
Then, something else happened the community could never have prepared for. Donations started pouring in by the hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Promises to help the victims and survivors. Support for community-based organizations. Declarations of long-term investment.
It was money offered in the language of healing. It wasn’t just emergency response. No; it was community revival. Well, it could have been. It was supposed to be. Those who were among the most impacted say things have changed. Unfortunately, not for the better.
Four years and nearly $100 million later, questions remain about not only how much money was raised, but what actually changed because of it. For months, I’ve been searching for answers from donors and recipients of 5/14 funds. I’ve tracked dozens of donations, pledges and allocations. Every answer I got led me back to one question, a question that rings through the East Side of Buffalo today: Where did the money go?
A Wreath of Remembrance
"I just really want to know – what really was still angering me and keeping me full of anxiety in a search for, what would you call it, restitution for this community. What happened to all of that money?" — Delores Jackson, 5/14 survivor
First: Where did the money come from?
The dollars and cents discussed are from sources of money that could be independently identified and verified. This is not a comprehensive account of every dollar that came from every person and entity. These are major gifts and pledges of $10,000 or more that came from notable sources.
More than $90 million was recorded in individual donations, pledges and allocations from numerous sources, all related to 5/14.
Three quarters of this funding came from New York State, with the lion’s share being a substantial investment Governor Kathy Hochul made to Buffalo’s East Side one month and four days after the mass shooting; a devotion to initiatives like securing and growing Black homeownership, growing businesses and increasing food access — all on Buffalo’s East Side.
"Let’s go big. Let’s be bold," Hochul said.
In addition to state funding, there were contributions from higher and lower levels of government. At the federal level, more than $12 million was allocated, the vast majority devoted to expanding access to mental health resources in the East Side community. But the federal money funded other things as well, like increased police patrols at large-scale events to protect against terroristic threats and gun violence, and assistance to help offset overtime and fringe benefits costs associated with law enforcement response to the mass shooting.
As for contributions from the City of Buffalo and Erie County, both shelled out funds for the development of the 5/14 Memorial and Healing Center. The county provided $500,000, while the city pledged $1 million in addition to a designation of $1.1 million in American Rescue Plan Funds to the Buffalo Urban League for the memorial’s commission.
Both federal and state support helped create two community-based response sites connected by one common thread, a word that cycles through press conferences and news reports every year: Resilience.
The Community Health Center of Buffalo Resiliency Center and the Buffalo United Resiliency Center are two similarly named institutions created to provide trauma response and support services to people impacted by 5/14.
Both have changed over the years, but today, they can each be traced back to the Community Health Center of Buffalo, or CHCB.
The Buffalo United Resiliency Center was established with state funding in 2022 as part of Hochul's $50 million dollar investment. The Resource Council of Western New York was originally awarded $3 million to serve as the resiliency center for victims' families and survivors, but in 2023, Hochul designated the Buffalo Urban League to lead a partnership with the CHCB to operate the center.
The Buffalo Urban League still lists the BURC among its programs, but the link directs users to a domain that appears inactive. An archived webpage shows the site was last known to be active on January 17 of this year.
The BURC's funding timeline, location history and relationship to the Health Center’s federally funded resiliency work remain murky. State records show a $5 million Office of Victim Services contract with the Buffalo Urban League, while public announcements described $2.5 million in state support through June 2025 and nearly $3.9 million in federal funding awarded to CHCB and BestSelf.
Al Hammonds, the Chief Operation Officer of CHCB, said federal funding is earmarked specifically to support mental health and wellness services for victims and victims' families rather than community-based events.
He specified victims include the three who were injured, the 94 individuals who were inside the store, and those affected who were within a one-block radius of the shooting.
"It's very specific," he said. "I want you to make sure you know that the funds are restricted."
Hammonds added that the nearly $3.9 million awarded was not something the organization received, but rather a reimbursement model to cover services it coordinates.
Following the promises
When it comes to corporate pledges, it only makes sense to start with Tops Supermarket. The grocer planted $500,000 in seed money to establish the Buffalo 5/14 Survivors Fund, in partnership with the National Compassion Fund.
Wegmans, normally a competitor to Tops, became an ally in the wake of the tragedy, putting forth $400,000 in contributions to both the 5/14 Survivors Fund as well as the second major resource pool that emerged afterward — the Buffalo Together Community Response Fund.
Nearly every major bank in the region gave six-figure donations to various organizations and causes to support both immediate and long-term investment in Buffalo’s East Side.
The KeyBank Foundation gave one of the largest contributions of a quarter-million dollars, plus over $31,000 matched in employee contributions. Publicly, the foundation’s gift was said to go toward supporting the victims' families. A KeyBank representative shared that the funds were disbursed among 11 local organizations. When asked how much money was allocated to each of those organizations, the bank declined to give a breakdown.
HSBC was transparent, but its documentation didn’t align with what was publicly stated. Two days after the mass shooting, the bank’s CEO, Michael Roberts, released a statement saying the bank would be donating $100,000 to provide immediate fresh food, groceries, and other much-needed supplies to the community.
When asked to confirm, a representative sent me a statement provided by the recipient, FeedMore Western New York. The nonprofit said it was able to distribute 251 tons of food and increase the presence of its mobile food pantry in and around Buffalo thanks to HSBC's grant of $75,000 — a quarter less than what was originally pledged.
"The impact is what is most important to us, over the donation amount,” an HSBC representative said.
While some donors appeared to give less than what was promised, some gave a bit more.
Delaware North, a giant in the hospitality and entertainment industry, publicly pledged $250,000 for recovery efforts. After talking with community leaders, it contributed to a dozen organizations and initiatives, mostly Black-led and/or youth development-centered. A third of Delaware North's total contribution, which was more than $2,000 above what it publicly stated, went to the Boys and Girls Club feeding program.
The United Way of Buffalo and Erie County also detailed how they spent their $100,000 food grant provided by General Mills. They administered those funds to four organizations to help launch a farmer’s market on the East Side, distribute produce vouchers, supply non-perishables to pantries, and support existing food insecurity programs.
The United Way also played another critical role in the wake of the tragedy, serving as the collection point of one of those two major funds mentioned a bit earlier — the Buffalo Together Community Response Fund — which is resurfacing in headlines these days for a number of reasons.
Understanding Buffalo Together
Buffalo Together, as it’s now called, raised $6.3 million dollars — but for what, and for whom, exactly? Was this a fund to provide direct relief to victims and survivors, or was it created to serve another purpose?
Garnell Whitfield, Jr., is the son of Ruth Whitfield, one of the 10 lives lost in the act of domestic terrorism. He is also a member of Buffalo Together's steering committee, and he said the organization's purpose is not only to respond to the tragedy but to support solutions to deeply rooted inequities in the community.
The organization, which is in the process of recruiting an executive director, has given $655,000 in grants to 86 different organizations with a remaining $6.1 million in an interest-bearing account marked for pledges and contributions for a long-term strategy.
"We wanted to get money into the hands of organizations and people in our community that were doing the work, many of them were doing the work before 5/14," he said. "These are organizations that traditionally, within our community, are Black-led organizations who don't have administrative help, who don't meet a lot of qualifications for grant funding, and those kinds of things.
"They were addressing the immediate needs of the community. We wanted to support that, and so that's how that money was distributed."
Some have pointed out the steering committee includes individuals who head or are part of organizations that received Buffalo Together grant funding. Whitfield said the committee was formed after the first round of grants had been distributed by the original funding group, resulting in no current steering committee member being in position to allocate funds to their own organization or personal endeavors.
He was adamant all groups receiving funds are East Side pillars standing for the community before and after 5/14.
"These are groups and entities that were doing the work, who have been doing the work without any fanfare, without any support, in many cases," he said. "Those are the persons who we wanted to make sure we supported."
Sports teams pour in promises
You’ve likely seen the photos of players, staff and coaches from Buffalo’s professional sports teams either visiting the memorial or helping distribute food on Jefferson Avenue. But beyond the tributes and volunteerism, what tangible support was provided?
The largest contribution pledge came from a joint effort from the Bills, the Sabres, and the Bandits through the sales of branded “Choose Love” t-shirts, which reportedly raised over $1 million dollars for the Buffalo 5/14 Survivors Fund and Buffalo Together.
Individual athletes such as former Bills running back Thurman Thomas and Bandits standout Dhane Smith took up fundraising efforts.
It might have appeared the Bisons and Major League Baseball pledged $10,000 to the Willie "Hutch" Jones Education Sports Program. But, despite an MLB press piece labeling it as support for a Buffalo youth program post-tragedy, a Bisons representative said it wasn’t 5/14-related at all; it was a regular grant funded through MLB’s Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities program.
The Bills published a press piece on the second anniversary of the massacre about the team continuing to give back to Western New York two years after the shooting. Among the listed partnerships and programs was a three-year pledge to the Healthy Community Store Initiative, which works to address disparities in food access. But a representative from the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Erie County, which operates the program, said the pledge was not created in response to the tragedy and instead came through a standard grant application process.
That doesn’t diminish the value of the contributions, but it does complicate the question of what was truly created in response to 5/14.
Tracking crowd-funded efforts
There were many crowd-sourcing pages created in response to 5/14, along with concerns about which campaigns were legitimate. Seven drew significant contributions.
Four of the seven campaigns brought in five- and six-figure totals that were ultimately forwarded to the only GoFundMe page that raised millions: The Buffalo 5/14 Survivors Fund, organized by the National Compassion Fund.
Jeff Dion, the organization's executive director, said the totality of the $6,452,355.32 raised was distributed to those deemed eligible.
"We distributed that amount to the penny," he said. "That's why there were two people who got an odd amount of money that ended in 66 cents, because you know, we just had to make sure that every penny was spent."
Dion said a steering committee finalized five categories of those eligible for compensation: A) Legal heirs of someone who was killed; B) Those injured by gunfire; C) Those injured during the event but not by gunfire; D) Those who were present and experienced psychological trauma; E) Tops employees who were not present but lost access to income for a month.
More than 400 applied and 169 were approved.
Ten applicants received compensation from Category A; three from Category B; one from Category C; 107 from Category D; 48 from Category E.
The steering committee "drew a circle around the store and the parking lot, and people who were inside that circle were going to be covered and eligible for direct payments, people outside the circle were not," Dion said. "That's the balancing act that a steering committee has to make."
That’s where things get complicated.
Who is, and isn't, a survivor?
Even when so many measures are taken to handle a critical process, one where every penny must not only be accounted for, but legitimized, is it possible that, in an effort to make sure no one filing a false claim receives compensation meant for victims and survivors, some applicants who were impacted according to the fund’s guidelines can still slip through the cracks?
That’s what Delores Jackson says happened to her. Jackson is a 65-year-old East Side native who enjoyed gardening, preparing Sunday dinners for her family and helping care for seniors in the neighborhood.
Life, as she knew it, would change, all because she decided to go to the grocery store one Saturday afternoon. She unknowingly parked right next to a white nationalist from the Town of Conklin and while she was shopping, she suddenly heard gunfire. She hid in a freezer. When it was finally safe to evacuate, she sustained injuries running for her life. She later discovered her car had been struck by gunfire in the parking lot.
"It was a day that I don't want to remember," she said.
Too shell-shocked to give a police statement, Jackson said she left the scene, but said federal agents arrived at her doorstep and identified her as a witness. Local organizations and law firms also found her. She began receiving notices by mail identifying her as a survivor of the mass shooting who might be eligible for compensation.
Jackson said she wasn’t seeking a payout from the tragedy, but as her mobility became limited, her medical expenses mounted and her car needed repairs, the assistance became necessary.
She put in a claim through the Buffalo 5/14 Survivors Fund, having sustained both physical injuries and psychological trauma, but applicants could only apply to be in one category, so she applied for the latter.
Her claim was denied because "law enforcement has not been able to verify" her presence in the Tops or its parking lot. To verify, she would have to provide examples of information that would help establish her presence, such a text message she sent or video she took from the scene.
Grady Lewis has a similar, yet slightly more complex story.
If his name sounds familiar, it may be because his story’s been told by national and local news outlets.
He had an hours-long conversation with the man who would carry out the mass shooting a day before it actually happened – with no way of knowing who he was, what hate-driven ideologies fueled him, or what he would do the next day.
Then, Lewis witnessed the mass shooting from the parking lot. He processed what he saw as best as he could, for as long as he could.
"I kind of left my body," he said, "and the little bit of couth my mother gave me, I just floated off of that for like a year and a half."
After being questioned by detectives and having his story told on the world stage, he, too, was told that his presence couldn’t be verified by law enforcement.
When asked about these examples, Dion said the steering committee needed to stay strict to what law enforcement verified — or what could be verified from security camera footage — to safeguard against fraud.
"If we give $1 to someone who wasn't there and shouldn't have it, that's $1 we're taking away from someone who was there," he said.
"I've done 32 of these, and I think the validation, particularly in a very public place like this, is very tricky."
The winding road to recovery
Post-crisis recovery is complex. Cities, much less individuals, are seldom prepared to manage life after a large-scale tragedy. Decisions have to be made and money has to move; quickly. There’s a lot of coordination that has to happen within a short timespan.
What makes it so difficult to account for the dollars and cents poured out in the name of recovery are two things:
One, there’s no single ledger. The public has to rely on press releases, news conferences, reports from steering committees, archived fundraisers, budget allocations and sheer memory. As time progresses and terms change, even these become harder to rely on.
The second difficulty arises from the term "recovery" itself.
What does it mean in this context? How did a racially motivated mass shooting evolve from immediate needs — grief counseling, funeral expenses and immediate food access — to planning for years-long revitalization projects for an entire community? And as revitalization plans stretch years into the future, some residents are left asking a difficult question: What, exactly, is there to show for the tens of millions announced in the name of recovery?
We’ve seen, for the most part, where the money came from. Now to account for where it’s gone — or where it hasn’t gone, for that matter.
Part II will publish Monday, June 1.
