LEAWOOD, Kan. — It’s been a little more than a month since the Jewish Community Center shootings took the lives of three people. One of the victims, Reat Underwood, would have turned 15 years old this week.
Underwood’s birthday is this coming Wednesday, May 21. On Monday his teachers and classmates were making fudge, his favorite dessert, as a sweet reminder of their classmate.
“It’s really sad, and we kind of don’t want to remember what happened, but I think it’s kind of nice in honor of his mom, I think it will give her some peace,” said one Blue Valley High student, Amelia Andrews.
She along with other students at Blue Valley High, were making fudge for Underwood’s birthday.
“It’s been a couple weeks since his passing, and we’re all starting to heal, and it’s just one more way for us to heal,” said Kendra Smith, a teacher at Blue Valley High.
She says the fudge will be a bitter-sweet reminder of Underwood’s life.
“I think the kids will really take it more as a celebration of Reat’s life,” Smith added.
Underwood’s mom asked the school principal, Scott Bacon, if she could provide her son’s favorite snack, chocolate fudge, to the whole school on his birthday. Bacon checked on it with food service director.
“He said well Scott, we could make it,” said Bacon. “Our food supplier, US Foods and Price Chopper heard about it, they donated all the product, and one thing led to another and here we are today.”
Bacon says it’s been a difficult year for Blue Valley High students, because of Underwood’s death and other situations.
“We had another student injured over spring break, so I think our students have grown a lot. I think our community has really come closer together as a result of those situations, and as I shared with our seniors in the last week, we will all leave this year wiser than when we came in,” said Bacon.
The fudge will be distributed during school lunch on Wednesday, which would’ve been Underwood’s 15th birthday.
