Grieving friends and family of hit and run victims fundraising for funeral costs

“It’s a shock to the entire community as you know. We just want to do right by their memory, and that’s why we are where we are right now,” Ogunbanwo says.

Juwe and Ogunbanwo both took classes at TRU, and spent time with the three young men who lived in Kamloops, and worked at the Coast Sundance Lodge in Sun Peaks. The group also attended the Redeem Christian Church of God in Kamloops together.

From left: Feyisola Adebowale, Oluwatosin Adeojo, Daniel Okocha. (Image Credit: Facebook)

“Daniel was my flatmate, Fey (Feyisola) was my very very good friend who I’m going to miss so much,” says Ogunbanwo. “We all carpooled to work. Kelvin (Oluwatosin) was my very good friend so at one point in time just to save gas, sometimes we’d go to work with Kelvin’s car, sometimes with Fey’s car, sometimes with my car. We were very very close. We did almost everything together.”

Friends and family were devastated to hear that Feyisola and Daniel lost their lives the night of the crash. Juwe says the news that Kelvin had succumbed to his injuries and died later on only added to the tragedy.

“Their parents really wanted the best for them. And this is why most of us come here, why we move so far away from home and come here — because we want to make something out of ourselves,” Ogunbanwo says. “And we just want to make that known to people, and hopefully people will be able to find ways to help us remember them and give them the funeral and burial that they deserve.”

Funeral costs are estimated at $15,000 to $20,000 for each of the victims, and Juwe says she hopes the community can reach out to help the family cover the expense.

“I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve never had to seek costs of how much goes into burial preparations.”

With family members living out of the country, friends have established a GoFundMe page to bury Feyisola Adebowale (accessed here).

While Daniel Okocha’s brother David has started a campaign (accessed here) to cover costs to have Daniel buried in Kamloops. So far the page has raised over $3,000.

“We were all just celebrating (recently) because we all just finished and got our masters degrees,” says Juwe. “Like I say, It’s very hard not to know these boys because they were very involved.”

And to pay for funeral costs for Kelvin, Juwe notes that another fundraiser has been started on Facebook (accessed here) by his former boss at 7-Eleven in Kamloops.

“At the time when it was set up, it was just in hopes to cover any medical bills or costs that he might have. We weren’t expecting to lose him. Which, unfortunately, we did.”

Once the family members of the victims have arrived in Kamloops, a memorial for the students will be held before the end of the year.

by Dylana Kneeshaw

Grieving friends and family of hit and run victims fundraising for funeral costs

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