More than $200,000 raised for Michigan church attacker’s family

OREM — More than $224,000 has been raised in an online fundraiser for the widow and children of the man police say attacked a Michigan church building.

Dave Butler, a writer and podcaster from Utah, organized the online fundraiser called “Help the Sanford family.” He has no ties to Grand Blanc or Thomas Jacob Sanford, who police said committed the deadly acts.

Butler, a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said he was heartbroken to see what happened to the chapel on Sunday.

“What a terrible thing to be the family members of people who are killed, who were shot, what a terrible thing the church burned the ground,” Butler said.

He said he remembers reading a social media post on Monday from someone saying the suspect’s family will also need support.

Butler couldn’t find a fundraiser for Sanford’s family, so he started one himself.

“Every human being, every child of God is worth taking concern over,” he said.

The GiveSendGo fundraiser quickly took off.

“I just hope that the money will be able to help get them through whatever they have coming their way,” said donor Marc Hallacker, who’s also a church member.

“You’re suffering for something that your husband did; let’s help you,” Hallacker said.

In only a couple of days, hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised.

“I just hope as people see it and go through the comments, they’ll see it’s nothing but love,” Hallacker said. “It’s not a self-righteousness. We’re not trying to say, ‘Oh, look how good I am.’ But it’s just, genuinely, there’s love here. There’s forgiveness. So, Sister Sanford, if I may, if you see this, we love you and we forgive you. And you didn’t do it. So why should she suffer?”

Butler shared a Bible verse from the book of James with his fundraiser: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction.”

He said his faith compelled him to help the Sanfords, but he points out that many people who aren’t LDS also donated to the fundraiser.

“The story is about the thousands of people who were willing to step up for a family that not only do they not know, but that it would be easy to write them off or say they’re getting what they deserve or whatever, and we’re not doing that,” Butler said.

He said he hopes the money can help the Sanfords with psychological trauma or financial hardships they may face.

“I thought, hey, maybe we can scrape together a few thousand bucks to help this family get through a month,” he said.

Butler said he didn’t organize the fundraiser for his own benefit or to make a point.

“The very little that I did was to try to be a follower of Jesus Christ. And I would love it if Christians would see this and go, ‘Wow, okay, Mormons are a lot less weird than I thought.'”

He said he hopes the fundraiser helps with healing.

“Maybe this is sort of like a little opening of the spigot, like we can let out a little bit of the pressure,” Butler said. “Rather than sit home and worry and stress and watch the news like, ‘I can help this family, right?'”

“It’s transformed at least some of this awful experience from an experience of trauma and wonder and anger to forgiveness and peacemaking.”

Butler said he plans to keep the fundraiser open for at least a few more days. He said he is in touch with a member of the Sanford family, and he hopes to speak with Sanford’s wife soon.

“There are some sort of due diligence kind of questions I got to figure out,” he said. “I would love it if it’s as simple as it’s a check to the widow. I don’t want to upset them if they’re receiving aid. I don’t want to fuel other bad situations. The task now for me is to figure out exactly the logistics. And I suspect it will take me a few days.”

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