‘Heartbreaking': Support floods in for family of teen killed in Green parade accident
Investigators said Matthew fell off of a parade trailer that was being pulled by a pickup truck, and was then struck by the back wheels of the trailer as it slowly continued to roll along the parade route.
Matthew was a seventh grader at North Canton Middle School and on Tuesday, his grieving classmates decorated his locker with notes showing their love and support for the 13-year-old.
'A bright light': Teen who died after fall from Memorial Day parade float in Green remembered as 'loyal and funny'
Among those deeply touched by the story is 18-year-old Peyton Craig, a 2025 graduate of North Canton High School.
'Hearing that it happened to someone in our community was heartbreaking. Like, I just had to take a moment and pause and think about it because that could happen to anybody at any time,' she said.
Craig was part of a junior achievement team that created what they call the 'Calm Canvas.'
Each canvas is a paint by numbers image that enables those dealing with loss or trauma to express their emotion in colors that match their feelings.
She is donating Calm Canvases to each of the schools in North Canton as healing tools for grief counselors, as they meet with students and staff struggling with Matthew's death.
'When they are coloring, they are learning and practicing coping mechanisms that they can take with them for the rest of their lives,' she said.
During a press conference in Green on Tuesday morning, Danielle Paciorek, who is a spokesperson for the Schultz family, told reporters, 'I'm speaking on behalf of the family of Matthew Schultz, who are experiencing unimaginable heartbreak after the tragic loss of their beautiful beloved son Matthew.'
Close friends have created a GoFundMe page to support Matthew's family and donations have been made by people across Northeast Ohio.
'The family would like to extend their deepest gratitude to everyone who has reached out with love and support and prayers, all the support over these few days,' said Paciorek.
Cleveland non-profit recruiting Black families for dementia care program
One of the most touching demonstrations of support for Matthew's family came from Green firefighters who rushed to his side at the parade on Monday.
Their union is now donating money that was raised from their annual pancake breakfast on Memorial Day to Matthew's loved ones.
The people of North Canton and the surrounding areas of Stark County and Summit County said they are letting the family know that they are being held in loving and healing arms.
'Matthew's absence leaves a hole that can't be filled, but his spirit will live on for everyone he touched,' Paciorek said.
Learn more about the GoFundMe page right here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
19 hours ago
- Washington Post
Fed up with U.S. health care costs, these Americans moved abroad
Jennifer Sontag cracked her skull and couldn't afford emergency brain surgery. Her doctors suggested she start a GoFundMe. 'Their advice was, 'You've got to get the surgery. You'll work it out later,'' she said. 'And I'm like, 'Are you kidding me? Your advice to someone in a medical crisis is to beg for money?''
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
My Cousin And I Exchanged Thousands Of Texts Before She Died — But I Never Asked The 1 Question I Should Have
I lived in fear of my cousin Tarlie's death for more than seven years. When the text arrived from my aunt, Tarlie's mom, my husband and I had put our children to bed and were sitting outside on our patio. 'She just passed. It was peaceful and her dad and I were both at her bedside when it happened.' Tarlie died on Memorial Day, shortly after her 31st birthday. When she was 23, she was diagnosed with a form of melanoma so aggressive but benign looking that three dermatologists were fooled by its appearance, and by the time it was recognized, it was too late. Melanoma spreads through the bloodstream and lymph nodes, moving so painlessly and invisibly that it can metastasize for a long time before anyone knows. Related: As I read my aunt's text, a rush of hot, electric energy ran through me. I felt my consciousness rise out of my body and then crash back down. I cried while clutching my heart as if it might fall out and shatter. I remembered how much Tarlie wanted to live for her parents and herself. She told me her two big fears were her own suffering before death and the suffering of her mother and father. 'Odds are I will die in the coming year of a long, excruciating death, leaving two miserable parents behind,' she had texted. As I sat outside in the dimming summer light, alive in the world that no longer held my beloved cousin, I wept and agonized over how to respond to my aunt. 'Crying for your loss and Uncle Jim's,' I wrote. 'You're such an amazing mom. Thank you for raising such an incredible human being. I love her so much and will all my life.' It was fitting Aunt Lisa's and my first words together after Tarlie's death were via text messages. In the years after her diagnosis, Tarlie and I sent each other more than 850 pages of texts. Our phone calls often lasted up to two hours, which was a time commitment we couldn't always make, but we could text from anywhere at any time. We texted when Tarlie found an unusual lump on her stomach while traveling with her mom in Madagascar, more than four years after her initial diagnosis. We texted a few weeks later after a doctor told her the melanoma had advanced to stage IV, the final stage. We texted as she waited in an airport security line a few days later, flying from her home in New York City to her Indiana hometown to tell her parents in person. Later, we texted as she lay in a hospital bed struggling to breathe through the side effects of immunotherapy, waiting to see if she'd need to be intubated. 'If I die, I want to just die and not know it,' she wrote before pulling through that particular time. But even though Tarlie and I talked frequently about her potentially dying young, I sometimes felt like a hypocrite. Intellectually, I knew she could die. She had asked me to sit on the phone with her several times while she opened terrifying test results. I understood the realities of her prognosis. Related: Still, I chose to believe she would live. I loved her so much that I knew I could never prepare for the pain of losing her. When I was a child, I prayed I would never outlive any of my siblings, and I loved Tarlie like a sister. If she died, my first great fear would come true. I also worried it would kill her parents. Tarlie is Aunt Lisa's only child and the love of her life. Because I chose to believe Tarlie would live, I never asked her the questions that scared me the most: What did she want me to do if the cancer killed her? What kind of responsibilities would she ask me to fulfill for her? What would she want me to do to support her parents? The day after Tarlie died, Aunt Lisa asked me to come back to Indiana for a small service. Tarlie chose to have her remains composted — turning her body into rich soil, reimagining her place in the world she loved so much — so she would be in Seattle with a green funeral home by the time I arrived. But her parents and many of her closest loved ones would be in her childhood home. 'I know it's last minute, so I understand if you can't come,' Aunt Lisa said. 'I'm coming,' I told her. 'Good,' she replied as we both began to cry. 'Good.' Technically, Aunt Lisa and I aren't related by blood. Tarlie and I are related through our fathers, who are brothers. But Tarlie and I loved each other as cousin-sisters. In some photos, Tarlie, my sisters and I look like full siblings, with our dark brown eyes and broad foreheads. What, then, does that make her mother to me? I flew into Indianapolis that weekend. My family had visited my aunt and uncle's house when we were children, but I hadn't been back in more than 20 years. In my mind, Tarlie's Barbie electric car would still be waiting for her in the long driveway. The leather armchair in the living room would still be cartoonishly large. Tarlie would be in her pink bedroom. 'I'm here, love,' I whispered. 'I'm coming to be with your mom and dad and partner and we're going to love on you.' The Midwestern sky was broad over the flat land as I drove an hour on the interstate from the airport to Aunt Lisa's house. I thought about my cousin under that big sky and the bright sun pouring down on her, helping her grow up to be brilliant and kind, while also invisibly sowing the seeds of cancer on her cheek. I arrived at the house already crying. Aunt Lisa emerged from around the path of the house to the deck. In some ways, Tarlie's fears had come to pass. She had suffered uncontrollable pain before she died, and her death devastated her parents. But her mother and I were still here, hugging in front of the house where Tarlie grew up and spent some of her last days. Tarlie's memory was alive inside us both, beyond even the reach of DNA and death. Related: The memorial service was scheduled for Saturday afternoon. That morning, Aunt Lisa and I curled up across from each other on the leather couch where Tarlie sat so many times. I told her a lesson I had learned from another bereaved parent: When a child dies, many people will avoid mentioning them for fear of hurting the parents. But often, their child is all the parents want to talk about. 'You can call me any time,' I said. 'I'll always want to talk about Tarlie.' As we moved through the day, I kept waiting to hear Tarlie's laugh from the next room. In her house, time felt like a thin veil. I wanted to reach through it and pull her back to us. Before the other visitors began to arrive, I went upstairs to the guest room, changed into a black dress and wrote down notes for the remarks I wanted to give at the memorial. As I was walking back down the hallway, Aunt Lisa peeked her head out of her bedroom door. 'Could you help me with something?' she asked. 'I'm trying to figure out what to wear. Tarlie was my fashion adviser.' It was a sacred request. During our family visits as a child, I never went in my aunt and uncle's bedroom. It was too private, too full of personal, fragile things. Now I was standing in Aunt Lisa's closet, looking up at a painting of Tarlie with a purple flower behind her ear and wishing she were here. In another universe, Tarlie would be the one standing where I was. Aunt Lisa would be helping her dress for the wedding she would never have, the baby shower that would never be thrown. Mother and daughter in their sanctum. 'I want to wear these pants.' Aunt Lisa pointed to the loose navy pair she had on. 'They're very comfortable, but I'm not sure about the shirt. How about this gray one?' 'Something isn't totally working,' I said. 'The colors are kind of clashing.' 'What about this dress?' She moved to another row in her closet and grabbed a hanger. 'Can you zip me up?' As she pulled the dress over her head, I realized there are only a few other people whom I have helped zip into dresses. As a child, my mother in her loose, floral dresses for church. As an adult, my own daughter. A handful of close friends. And now Aunt Lisa. 'I think it's a little too loose. It's losing your waist a bit,' I said. 'I don't think I have a waist anymore.' We both laughed. Then Aunt Lisa took down a dark navy bubble dress with a pattern of white flecks. 'What about this?' She put it on and stepped in front of her mirror. When she turned around and asked me what I thought, she looked more like Tarlie's mother than ever. The same bright smile, smooth nose and sense of style. A woman of extraordinary grace and power who fiercely loved her daughter into life and then beyond it. Related: It's been three years since Tarlie died. After Tarlie's body was composted, Aunt Lisa took the fertile soil to build a garden in front of her home and filled it with native plants that draw butterflies and bees to pollinate the land that raised her daughter. She lovingly tends it all year round. On what would have been Tarlie's 34th birthday, her close friends wished her a happy birthday in the WhatsApp group that Tarlie created years ago to update us on the cancer's progression. We stay in community with each other and the earth she loved. It would make her happy to know that we try to live the values that meant so much to her. I never asked Tarlie what she wanted me to do if she died young. But as we texted and talked from a Madagascar hotel to a New York hospital bed, she was teaching herself and me how to live with the despair and hope of an uncertain future. To be afraid of the pain but remain present with the ones we love. To be overwhelmed by a mixture of agonizing grief and boundless gratitude for that miraculous love. To keep showing up for the ones left behind. To live in ways that honor the courage and compassion Tarlie brought to the world. Virgie Townsend is the award-winning author of the short story collection 'Because We Were Christian Girls,' inspired by her own experiences growing up and leaving Christian fundamentalism. She has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Sun Magazine, Harper's Bazaar and other outlets. You can find her online at Do you have a compelling personal story you'd like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we're looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@ Related... My Husband Died Abroad. As I Boarded The Plane Home, A Flight Attendant's Innocent Comment Broke Me. After My Wife Died, I Found A 4-Word Text Message In Her Phone That Hit Me Like A Sledgehammer I Was Devastated When The Love Of My Life Died. Then I Started Seeing Signs I Couldn't the daily Crossword
Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
ICE spared him from deportation to Venezuela. He donated a kidney to save his ailing brother in the Chicago area
The minutes dragged into hours on Wednesday night as Jose Gregorio Gonzalez tossed and turned through the night. At 5 a.m. the next day, he was scheduled to donate his kidney to his younger brother, Alfredo Pacheco, who was also restless. By 2 a.m. the two couldn't stay in bed any longer and began to get ready for a day that they thought would never come. ',' Gonzalez said. 'It's a miracle, because all odds were against us.' His mind raced back to the nights he spent locked inside an immigration detention center earlier this year, convinced he would soon be deported, while his younger brother pleaded with ICE officials to let him stay. Gonzalez was Pacheco's only hope to keep living after being diagnosed with terminal renal failure. When doctors told Pacheco he needed a kidney transplant, Pacheco stepped up. ',' Gonzalez said in Spanish. 'I didn't think about it twice.' But in March, just shy of a few weeks to begin the process for the transplant, Gonzalez was suddenly arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside their home in Cicero. Without him, Pacheco's condition would continue to deteriorate, putting him on an endless waiting list to get a transplant due to his immigration status. And doctors warned that time was running out. Gonzalez knew it: If he was deported, his brother would die. On Thursday, the brothers were admitted to the University of Illinois Hospital, where the transplant surgery was successfully performed. Hospital officials confirmed that both Pacheco and Gonzalez were recovering well. After mounting pressure from advocates and elected officials, ICE granted Gonzalez a temporary humanitarian parole so that they could proceed with the transplant, an unexpected move at a time when the agency is ramping up enforcement. Unlike in past administrations, immigration experts say agents today have less discretion over individual cases and are under pressure to meet deportation quotas, leaving little room for compassion. Though Gonzalez must return to Venezuela by March — after he's recovered from surgery — he says he's deeply grateful to the agent who, as he put it, 'touched his heart' and gave him the chance to save his brother's life. ',' Gonzalez said, smiling, his voice quiet and weak. 'Everything is possible if you have faith.' Even through the surgery, Gonzalez wore the ankle monitor that ICE activated when he was released from the Clay County Jail in southwest Indiana. The brothers now face a long and perhaps complicated road to recovery. The two have limited funds from the few hours of work that Pacheco was able to put in after dialysis over the last few months. Gonzalez was still waiting for the work permit that ICE officials promised. They were able to pay for rent and Pacheco's health insurance for a few months thanks to a fundraiser organized by his neighbors in the town of Cicero and a page on a GoFundMe page still open. But the money is running out quickly. Pacheco said he is worried the two won't be able to rest or take care of themselves properly after the surgery, potentially offsetting the success of the organ transplant and putting their lives on line once again. 'I have to be honest, we were so focused on making sure that I could get the transplant that we didn't consider much of the rest,' Pacheco said. 'We only have each other and cousins here. The rest of our family is in Venezuela.' Their cousin Cristalyn Gonzalez, 38, said her husband took some days off work to take care of their two kids so that she can help the brothers while they're at the hospital. 'I want them to feel supported somehow,' she said. 'We never thought that we would go through something like in the country we thought was going to provide us with opportunities to make a better life for us and our children.' Pacheco was the first one of the brothers to make his way in 2022. Like many other Venezuelan migrants, he made the trek to the United States hoping to get asylum from political and socioeconomic turmoil in Venezuela, where he served as part of the military during his youth. By January 2024, Pacheco was suddenly diagnosed with end-stage renal disease not long after arriving in the Chicago area from the southern border. 'My world completely fell apart,' Pacheco said, who at first refused to tell his family back in Venezuela. 'They were counting on me to help out over there.' Gonzalez was already at the southern border when he learned of his younger brother's brother's prognosis. Though agents had denied him entry the first time, he tried to enter again a second time, knowing that he would be his brother's lifeline. That's when Gonzalez was detained for the first time at a Texas facility awaiting deportation, but since there were no deportation flights to Venezuela, he was released to join Pacheco in Chicago under immigration supervision in March 2024. 'That was the first miracle,' Pacheco said. 'I know God was on our side.' Due to the previous order of removal, unlike Pacheco, Gonzalez cannot apply for asylum or any other kind of immigration relief. ICE officials had no comment, citing confidentiality rules. The oldest of six and having lost two younger siblings to accidents over the last few years in Venezuela, Gonzalez felt it was a blessing to be by Pacheco's side even if it was only for a few months to donate his kidney. Until ICE took him once again in March of 2025, just shy of a month of starting the process to donate the kidney — as confirmed by UIC hospital officials — and days before his parole ended. 'It has been a difficult, painful and frustrating experience,' Pacheco said. 'The American Dream doesn't exist. It's a lie. But at least there are good people in Chicago.' Despite his illness and uncertainty, getting dialysis every other day for four hours in the early morning, Pacheco worked delivering packages for Amazon. He used most of the money to pay for rent and food, and the rest, he said, he would send to his wife and children in Venezuela. 'They think everything is going OK here in Chicago, and that one day I will be back healthy and with enough money to start anew,' Pacheco said. Pacheco's children, a girl, 17, and twin boys, 9, still don't know that their father has a terminal illness. They also didn't know that we underwent lifesaving surgery on Thursday morning. They do know however, that their father and their uncle are hoping to return to Venezuela sometime soon, when 'things are much better,' he said. 'I now pray that my body responds well and that I have the strength to undergo the recovery,' Pacheco said. The recovery process is not an easy one, said Hilda Burgos, a longtime community activist who was key to the movement that helped to establish and pass legislation in Illinois in 2014 that expanded access to organ transplants, specifically kidney transplants, and the drugs needed to maintain the transplants, for immigrants with an irregular status in the country. 'Undocumented people, 'illegal people,' as many like to call us, were allowed to donate our organs to save people's lives including us citizen, but if we needed one, we couldn't get one. We couldn't even get in line to get one,' Burgos said. 'These two brothers are a testament to great work that the community has done to advocate for each other. We are not talking about policies here, it is people's lives.' Burgos' passion to advocate for those undocumented people in need of transplants began after her son was initially denied a kidney transplant he needed to continue living when he was 18-year-old in 2009. After mourning pressure, he got the surgery, but it was also then when she became aware of the 'unfair system.' Shortly after, she joined a delegation of faith leaders and medical leaders representing a group of ailing people in need of lifesaving transplants in Chicago. The group, led by the late Rev. Jose Landaverde performed hunger strikes outside the city's major hospitals, marched from Little Village to UIC and then to Northwestern. And they even conducted a funeral march for one woman who had died after not receiving a liver transplant. 'The fight for transplants was not an easy one,' Landaverde told the Tribune in 2014. While the 2014 law represented a significant step, its initial impact was limited due to several factors. In response, the Illinois Transplant Fund, a nonprofit organization, was established in 2015 to provide financial assistance, primarily covering health insurance premiums for eligible individuals, including undocumented immigrants, needing transplants and their aftercare. Over the last 10 years, ITF has supported hundreds of patients through the transplant process, including Pacheco. 'Senate Bill 741 was a simple, compassionate measure that has saved the lives of those many of us may never meet,' said Rep. Lisa Hernandez, D-Cicero, 'It's in situations like Alfredo's and Jose's that we see the urgent need for our fiscal, health and education policy to not single out, but bring in, our neighbors without permanent legal status and those on society's margins.' Hernandez was one of the many elected officials leaders who rallied in support of the Venezuelan brothers, with more than 1,700 other people signing a petition requesting that ICE release Gonzalez. Most recently, in 2021, Illinois passed a new bill directing the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services to cover post-transplant care for noncitizen kidney transplant recipients. A spokesperson for HFS said that despite the most recent changes, including the dismantling of coverage for noncitizen adults 42 to 65 years old, 'noncitizens who are not eligible for comprehensive medical benefits who have End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) may be eligible for certain dialysis, kidney transplantation, and post kidney transplantation services.' Immigration advocates say the brothers' case underscores the human cost of detention policies and the importance of considering humanitarian exceptions. 'We celebrate not just a successful surgery, but the triumph of love and community over fear and cruelty,' said Erendira Rendón, vice president of immigrant justice at the Resurrection Project, which provided Gonzalez with legal and community support for his release. 'The fact that this feels like such an incredible victory speaks to how cruel our immigration system has become. Across the country, families are being torn apart as parents, caregivers, coaches and partners are detained indiscriminately and jailed indefinitely in overcrowded facilities that put their mental and physical health at risk.' As the Venezuelan brothers recover side by side in a small hospital room, the physical pain is a reminder that their journey is far from over. Though the transplant was a hard-won victory, their lives remain defined by uncertainty, limited resources, fragile immigration status and the looming deadline for Gonzalez's return to Venezuela in March. And yet, for the first time in months, they can finally rest. ',' Pacheco said. 'We leave our life in God's hands.' Their pain, once rooted in fear and desperation, is now part of a story of survival made possible not by policy, they said, but by people. A community of strangers in the Chicago area rallied around them, Pacheco said, offering the kind of support they never expected to find in a foreign country.
