Minneapolis honors Annunciation victims with acts of service on one-year remembrance
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Minneapolis marked one year since the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School with a day of service and remembrance.
Eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski were killed in the Aug. 27, 2025, shooting, and 29 others were injured.
In their honor, dozens of volunteers gathered Thursday at Pearl Park in south Minneapolis, about a mile from Annunciation, to collect school supplies, pack care kits for young people experiencing homelessness and work on a community garden.
Children drew with chalk and blew bubbles on the warm, sunny afternoon. A small crowd gathered around a table with churros, sambusas and Somali tea donated by area businesses.
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Local elected officials hosted the event. Minneapolis City Council member Jamison Whiting said organizers wanted to honor the Annunciation community’s request to commemorate Aug. 27 with acts of service — and bring people together.
“What we do is come around each other. We hold each other through the hardest of events, and that's what you're seeing today, is a culmination of that effort, that love, hope and joy that we do here in the city of Minneapolis and across this state,” Whiting said.
The idea to pack care kits came from an Annunciation eighth grader. Volunteers wrote encouraging messages to include in each one, assembling 150 total.
Annunciation planned private events on Thursday, but some parents and children joined the event at Pearl Park, too. They wore shirts bearing the school’s theme for the coming year.
“Guide our feet into the way of peace.”
