GRAND JUNCTION, Iowa — On Jan. 4, 11-year-old Ahmir Jolliff, a student at Perry Middle School, was killed after a gunman opened fire at Perry High School.
When Grand Junction's Ellen McElroy heard the news, she wanted to help in any way possible, so she recently turned to a silent auction ran on Facebook, with funds benefitting the families of Perry school shooting victims.
Her item to be auctioned? A quilt she hand-embroidered months after her son, Arnold Thomas, better known as Tommy, passed away in the 1980s.
"He was everybody's pride and joy," she said.
Tommy died in a car crash in 1981, when he was just 9 years old. When the Perry school shooting happened, the tragedy of her son's death came back to mind, because she understood what the victims' families were going through.
"If what was gotten for this, helped [Jolliff's] family, I'm happy," McElroy said.
The quilt went for $1,000, and all items amassed for thousands of dollars more.
McElroy's quilt was supposed to go to the auction winner, but the winner decided to let McElroy keep her quilt and still donate the money.
However, McElroy said she still wants to give her quilt away to the Jolliff family or to the Perry High School or city library to be hung up as a memory of her son and Ahmir.