PRESS RELEASE: Mass Shooting Families Across the Nation Release Statement on the Lewiston-Auburn Area Response Fund

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Feb. 13, 2026 – We are writing not only as families of mass shootings from across this country, but also as one of the largest donors to the Maine Community Foundation’s “Lewiston-Auburn Area Response Fund.” We collected over $240K for our Lewiston mass shooting family for the Victims’ and Families Fund.

Our families have read the statements made by the Maine Community Foundation this week to the media to blunt criticism from Lewiston mass shooting survivors about its Response Fund.

At the outset, we want to acknowledge that 100% of the Victims’ Fund portion went directly to victims/survivors in cash payments and we appreciate the MCF for creating the Victims and Families’ Fund. However, the MCF’s current position about the nonprofit portion of their Response Fund is not considered Best Practices by the majority of over two decades of mass casualty victims’ families and survivors.

Having used the umbrella term “Lewiston-Auburn Area Response Fund” to describe both the victims’ fund and the nonprofit fund created unnecessary confusion among victims’ families and survivors. Referring to this structure in this way denoted a single “fund,” further conflating two very different purposes. However, our concerns extend beyond semantics.

The process MCF employed for the nonprofit fund with a steering committee that allowed nonprofit executives to grant money to their own organizations was highly unethical in its self-dealing. We find this indefensible.

The donations MCF collected were the result of murder, injury, and suffering. These donations were granted to various community organizations MCF defined as “friends and neighbors” and “the foundation of our community.” Of these nonprofits which received $65K+ each, 90% of them did not “respond” to the needs of people harmed and traumatized from being in the direct line of fire while their family, friends, and neighbors were being slaughtered around them.

Obviously, there wasn’t a plan that prioritized victims/survivors with these grants; there was neither a requirement to help nor a thorough vetting process.

It’s time to remedy this untenable situation. The MCF must do the right thing and urge the nonprofits that did not assist the survivors of the Lewiston shooting to return those grants for direct redistribution to the verified victim base.

“This is a reasonable, ethical, and compassionate corrective action to take for our Lewiston mass shooting family,” said VictimsFirst’s Anita Busch who has worked on 56 mass casualty crimes over the past 13 years and whose family has endured two mass shootings.