OGDEN, Utah (KSTU) – A single mother from Utah set up a GoFundMe page to plan her own funeral, and it ended up raising more than $1 million for her two young kids.
Loved ones gathered to remember Erika Carr at a vigil on Thursday night.
“I want the community to come together just to show the love for her because she was a great person,” Carr’s sister, Vanessa Barnes, said.
Carr’s family is feeling the weight of their loss.
“She was everything to me, and she was the person who I could run to and that was always there for me through everything,” Vanessa Barnes added.
Community members held the candlelight vigil Thursday in memory of the 30-year-old woman who fought cancer and Cushing syndrome for years.
“We do have our nieces and nephews that are really in a hard time right now,” Gina Barnes, Carr’s other sibling, described. “We’re just trying to grieve together and just kind of really show people who Erika was. She was a great person, really kind-hearted, soul.”
Before she died, Carr created a GoFundMe to raise $5,000 to cover her funeral and leave some money for her kids.
In the end, she ended up raising more than $1,200,000.
“You see every day, GoFundMe, and it’s like this was something special,” Gina Barnes said. “Everybody knew Erika, the community. It’s just amazing. It was just like, ‘Wow, we just only wanted what we wanted, and we’ve got more than that.’”
Gina Barnes says all of the extra money will go into a trust fund for the children to ensure they will live well as they grow up.
“She wanted us to be happy, do not be sad, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do,” Gina Barnes said.
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