(UVALDE, Texas) — The “Remember Their Names” festival, established last year as a tribute to the victims of the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, has been disbanded due to lack of volunteer support, organizers said. The event was previously held last October at the city’s Fairplex.
“We had originally planned for a yearly thing,” festival organizer Sue Ellen Vera told ABC News. “Unfortunately, it is not going to happen again. We didn’t have too much help, so it was a lot that we took on our own.”
Vera and her partner, Jaime Flores, were the two leading organizers. The festival provided scholarship funds to 21 Uvalde High School students, in honor of the deceased victims and survivors. Vera said there was a lack of support with organizing and managing funds, resulting in some financial troubles with distribution. The issue has since been resolved, she noted.
“We were very sad that we weren’t able … to keep going because it was something that we wanted to do,” Vera said.
Adalynn Ruiz, the daughter of Eva Mireles, one of the two teachers killed when a gunman attacked Robb Elementary School, told ABC News last year that the importance of this special event was “to make sure nobody forgets.”
ABC News’ Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
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