(Pamela Cosel, Headline News) In the heart-breaking aftermath of last week’s mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, there is a bit of goodness and hope. A family-run company in Edna, Texas, has custom-made the child-sized caskets, designing them with unique themes.
SoulShine Industries, owned by Trey Ganem, was contacted by the Texas Funeral Directors Assotion on the day of the shooting, according to CNN. Ganem and his 25-year-old son worked for 20 hours straight to get the caskets completed over the holiday weekend. Together they only got about six hours of sleep, in order to finish the 19 caskets for the victims’ bodies.
The caskets were bought from a Georgia company and the Ganems assembled and painted them.
While an emotional task making such for children, the Ganems met with family members to come up with designs that included images of Spiderman, softball, Pokemon, a race car and more.
“We don’t just put a vinyl wrap on top,” Ganem told CNN.
“We actually paint every single one. We take the casket completely apart, and we paint the hardware, we paint the bars. The class and the passion that we put into these there is bar none.”
SoulShine Industries is donating the cost of the caskets and has received a few donations from others. The company has previously made caskets for victims of past other mass shootings, as well. The Ganems built one for Vanessa Guillen, the US Army soldier who was murdered in April 2021 at Fort Hood, Texas.
The mother of one of the Uvalde victims chose a llama design for her daughter’s casket. Sandra Torres told BuzzFeed News that Eliahna Torres loved the animals, as well as yellow slime and TikTok.
“She would tell me that she needed glue for school because she had a big ole project to do, and the glue would be to make slime,” she said in an interview. “She drove us crazy with the TikTok.”
Personalizing each victim’s casket won’t take away the deep pain, but it’s something special that allows family members to reconnect with their loved ones who were so tragically killed.
