“3.21.05 Project” Starts Fundraising Campaign for a Memorial for the 2005 Red Lake School Shooting

3.21.05… those are numbers that Red Lake Nation will remember forever; as on March 21st, 2005, the unbelievable happened at Red Lake High School when someone decided to take a gun to school and shoot their fellow classmates. 19 1/2 years to the day however, a memorial project has started for that school shooting. In the fall of 2022, a small group of survivors from that shooting came together and founded the 3.21.05 Memorial Fund Project as a way to honor all of the lives lost and changed forever on March 21st, 2005.

“They have plans to construct a memorial site here in Red Lake between the college and the government center, and it’s their way of trying to show love and pay remembrance to our fallen classmates who lost their lives in the school shooting back in 2005.” says Thomas Barrett, Red Lake Tribal Council Member.

The event on Saturday kicked-off the fundraising project to build and maintain a memorial to provide a permanent historic record of the events of March 21st, 2005. The names of the victims and families involved with the school during 2005 will be permanently engraved along the walls of the memorial so that future generations will always remember what happened on that day.

“We feel like we know the people forgot about us and know we’re still we’re still here, and there’s going to be their cousins and, you know, nieces and nephews years to come.” says Starr Jourdian, a 2005 Red Lake School Shooting Survivor and 3-21-05 Board Member, “They’re going to be asking about of them, and they have to know the history of what happened that day, too.”

I just want them to be remembered; I don’t want them to be forgotten.” adds Tessy Johnson, a 2005 Red Lake School Shooting Survivor and 3-21-05 Board Member

For some of the families who had kids in the school during the shooting, this memorial is a long time coming.

“It’s important for everybody to remember everything that happened that day, every person.” says  Leeann Cobenhais, Mother to a Red Lake School Shooting Victim, “Not only them, but some families got torn apart from it, and I can honestly say my family got torn apart, and I’m not I’m not the only family. So it’s good that this is all come forth, it should help, like it says, give people hope and something to look forward to… but why did it take so long?”

Victims from the shooting who are now part of the memorial project gave speeches during the event on Saturday remembering the events of that day, and telling stories about the students who tragically lost their lives.

“All of the adults are grown up, they’re grownups now, but in my mind, they’re still my babies.” says Missy Dodds, Teacher during 2005 Red Lake School Shooting and 3-21-05 Project Head Coordinator. “They were all 15 years old, they were having a normal day at school, in the end the unimaginable happened and it’s taken that nineteen and a half years to the day and they found their voices, and I can’t help but be proud watching them as adults now and knowing that they’re not victims, they’re survivors.”

The 3.21.05 fund is a component of the Northwest Minnesota Foundation located in Bemidji. If you would like to donate to the memorial, you can email the head coordinator of the project, Missy Dodds, at this email address; [email protected].