Adam Rostad attended Abundant Life Christian School from kindergarten through 12th grade, graduating in 2006. His grandfather, Warren Heckman, was the senior pastor of what is now City Church next door.
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So when Rostad heard about Monday’s shooting at the school that took the lives of a teacher and two teenage students, including the shooter, he immediately wanted to help.
Two people bring items for a memorial Tuesday outside Abundant Life Christian School in Madison.
Shortly after 1 a.m. Tuesday, he set up a Google form and put it on his website, mortarboxmedia.com, asking who in the community might be willing to donate money or time to help the ALCS family.
In the first 12 hours of the post, Rostad received some 150 responses. He’s since been in touch with the school to make connections for donations and feels moved to do more, he said.
Rostad joined many others in the community, including a number of small businesses, that responded to Monday’s shooting with an offer of services or a helping hand.
People leave candles and flowers Tuesday at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison.
“I was inspired by the memories of my youth, when in times of dire stress, people came to support my family by simply offering a prepared meal so that we wouldn’t have to worry about it,” said Rostad, who is also the organizer and host of the Madison Story Slam and now lives in Waunakee. “As a father now, I couldn’t imagine needing to spend 45 minutes last night cooking dinner for my kid if they were an ALCS student.”
Mallory Orr, owner of Mercies Coffee at 1748 Eagan Road, said she attends City Church next door to Abundant Life Christian School and has many regulars at her café who are part of the ALCS community. She quickly offered up the use of her coffee shop’s back room as a private, comforting space for victims to meet, gather or just have a quiet space to process grief.
“During this timeframe, coffee and tea drinks are free for those with a valid ALCS student/staff ID. However, no purchase is necessary for your group,” she wrote on the Mercies Coffee Facebook page. “We are here for you and are committed to helping you heal in whatever way we can. You are loved, Madison.”
“I have a deep love for the students and teachers and staff” from ALCS who frequent Mercies, Orr explained in a phone interview. A few students dropped by since the shooting and “I’ve gotten to give them hugs,” she said.
Gift of pizza
Jose Zavala, general manager and owner of Rocky Rococo Pizza at 4556 Monona Drive, usually doesn’t work on Mondays. But when he dashed into his restaurant at noon on Dec. 16 to pick up his laptop, the phone was ringing and he answered it. It was a call from a school official at Abundant Life Christian School.
“She sounded emotional for sure. She politely asked if Rocky Rococo could provide any pizza for the children” and others — about 180 people total — who were on lockdown after the shooting, he said.
Zavala quickly gathered about 50 slices of pizza, 26 orders of breadsticks with marinara and cheese sauce, and some 50 freshly baked cookies and drove them to the SSM Health clinic where school staff and students were evacuated before being reunited with their families.
“I got pretty emotional when I was leaving” after dropping off the food, Zavala said. “The students were arriving there in buses.”
A few hours later, Zavala got a call from his sister saying someone had ordered a pizza dinner to send to a school family as an act of kindness.
As Zavala prepared that order, he decided, “Why not help all the families? The more help we can give, the better,” he said.
He offered on Facebook to provide dinner for anyone in the Abundant Life community, and 18 families responded. Meanwhile “other individuals in the community were calling the restaurant to donate” to cover the cost of the meals, he said. Zavala himself will continue to donate meals to students, teachers and staff through Saturday, he said.
His family just took over the restaurant in August from Rocky Rococo founder Roger Brown, for whom Zavala’s father had worked since 1998. Helping out during the shooting aftermath is just one way he can repay the community, he said.
“In the past few months,” Zavala said, “a lot of people have done a lot of nice things for me.”
More ways to help
People bring cases of water to City Church on Monday. The church shares a campus with Abundant Life Christian School.
City officials and nonprofits also extended a hand on Tuesday.
United Way of Dane County established a fund for those impacted by the fatal shootings. All funds raised by the Abundant Life Christian School Emergency and Recovery Fund will go directly to the school to support those impacted by the shootings. To give, donors should visit unitedwaydanecounty.org or text help4ALCS to 40403. United Way officials also cautioned donors to look out for scammers misrepresenting themselves as legitimate charities helping the school.
In a press conference Tuesday, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said many resources, including the United Way of Dane County link, can be found at the website cityofmadison.com/resources. Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes called it “a hurting and haunting situation” that “will need our continued support.”
“And we pledge to give them that in the days, months and even years ahead,” Barnes said.
Under a bleak winter sky Tuesday morning, against a backdrop of police tape and dozens of TV reporters in front of the school, a small shrine was rising along East Buckeye Road. A few bunches of silk flowers were tied to a fence, framing two dozen votive candles, and a few bouquets of fresh flowers lay on the pavement in front of the school building.
Two members of the Billy Graham Rapid Response team out of Charlotte, North Carolina, also stood along the sidewalk, their bright yellow or red vests in contrast to the dark winter coats of the visiting TV reporters.
The team often responds to tragedies such as natural disasters and school shootings, said Chad Stillman, a chaplain coordinator who drove to Madison from Burlington.
Both he and his fellow rapid response team member, Brian Gonzales, of Kenosha, are former members of law enforcement, Stillman said.
“We really have a heart for the first responders who have to deal with this these things and see what they see,” Stillman said. Their organization “is faith-based, and we just want to offer a ministry of presence and try to bring people some hope in really, really dark times.”
