For blocks stretching out from Annunciation Catholic Church and School, trees and light posts are hugged by blue and green ribbons. Just days after the shooting, volunteers took action to literally wrap support around the grieving community.
While national media attention has turned elsewhere, the momentum in Minneapolis hasn’t slowed down.
“The goal is, after just unimaginable, tragic heartbreak, how do we overwhelm it with love?” said Sarah Henning, one of the organizers behind the Bows of Love effort.
That mindset is one that has spread deep within the south Minneapolis community and beyond, with a memorial site overflowing with vibrant flowers and different community-driven events for the Annunciation community each night. There have been prayer services and vigils, non-denominational singing events, pancake breakfasts and an event in which runners delivered stuffed teddy bears to the memorial.
As of last week, Henning said more than 1,000 people have helped out with the initiative and more than 20,000 bows have been cut from plastic table cloth. That’s enough, she estimated, to cover roughly 30 miles of trees and street lamps. She said the priority is making sure every Annunciation family is shown love.
Henning has lived in a community that was shaken by a mass shooting. In 2023, she was in Nashville during the 2023 Covenant school shooting. She said she lived close enough to hear the children at the school play outside during recess each day.
“I know this is gonna change us,” she said.
Henning said moving forward, Bows of Love will be finding more permanent and sustainable replacements for the ribbons next month. They're also looking into partnering with a local artist to make memorial art from the plastic ribbons.
It's a reminder for the families, she says, of how much this city loves them.
“This sign of love is not a momentary sign of love,” she said.
Part of the support has come not just from the display, but from the act of being together to do something. At the first volunteer event for ribbon-cutting, Henning said she expected 50 people to turn up, but the number was closer to 300.
The wave of unexpected turnout has happened in other places.
Organizers thought 30 people would participate in a community run last Wednesday. Attendance ballooned to upwards of 200 people, with runners from the Twin Cities metro, Catholic school teachers, Annunciation alumni and family members of children who were injured.
They started at Fleet Feet, a neighborhood running store, and jogged to the church with stuffed teddy bears to place at the memorial honoring 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski — who were killed — and other victims of the shooting.
John Long, the owner of Fleet Feet, said hundreds of people who have come through over the years have ties to Annunciation, including staff.
"It's a close-knit community in south Minneapolis. We all care about each other,” he said. “I think it's just nice to be able to do something simple and caring and bring it together with running, which is something people find a lot of solace in, too.”
"I think it's just beautiful to see everyone come together and lean on each other,” said Kim Young, who organized the run.
She and her three siblings graduated from Annunciation. She felt safe during the eight years she was there — and said it should have been for these children, too.
"We need each other, and the families and victims of Annunciation, they need us right now,” she said. “This is showing them that our hearts are with you."
That message was present as the runners wound their way through the streets around Annunciation, passing blue and green ribbons fluttering in the wind.
