GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Three years ago Wednesday, Laurie Smith lost two family members the night a part-time Uber driver went on a random shooting rampage in metro Kalamazoo.
"I don’t know that it’s ever going to get easier," Smith, her voice breaking, said on the third anniversary of the shootings.
"I heard that it does, but it hasn’t yet," she continued. "So I just try to focus on, ‘What can I do to give back to people?’ Because that’s where I feel any ounce of joy, is when I focus on giving back to others."
Smith heads up the ForeverStrong Memorial Foundation, which is working to build a tribute to victims ofthe shooting spreethat killed six people and wounded two, as well as the fivebicyclists who were hit and killedby a high driver several months later.
"There were two really horrible tragedies, and we all came together, we were there for each other, and we just want to carry on those legacies," Smith said.
On Feb. 20, 2016, her husband Rich and son Tyler were killed as they checked out vehicles at a car dealership in Kalamazoo. Four others — Judy Brown, Barbara Hawthorne, Mary Jo Nye and Mary Lou Nye — died later in the parking lot of the Cracker Barrel restaurant on South 9th Street off I-94 in Texas Township.
When the restaurant closed permanently last fall after a salmonella outbreak, Smith said ForeverStrong board members came up with the idea of trying to put the memorial there.
"We think it would be just a perfect spot to put it because more than half of the people who lost their lives that night, it was at the Cracker Barrel," Smith said.
Smith also likes the high visibility of the location, which you can easily from I-94.
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