Bills Mafia Steps Up To Help Super Bowl Parade Shooting Victims
For the newest NFL champion, it was meant to be a day of celebration, but instead it was filled with unimaginable agony.
As the Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl LVIII on Wednesday, around a million people were celebrating when gunshots were heard throughout the procession. The incident resulted in one fatality and twenty-two injuries, the majority of which were to children.
Although the Buffalo Bills are the Chiefs’ opponents on the field, their supporters, dubbed the Bills Mafia, have a reputation for coming together for those in need. In light of this, Bills Mafia has made a large donation to Children’s Hospital in Kansas City, where a number of the gunshot victims are receiving medical attention.
Del Reid, the co-founder of Bills Mafia, backed a campaign encouraging people to donate $22, in honor of the 22 attack victims, while a fan on the Bills subreddit posted a link for donations to the hospital.
“To finally have a championship parade and for something like that to happen in Buffalo would break my heart,” Reid expressed to KSHB 41. “It hurts my feelings that Chiefs supporters had to experience that. As you said just now, it should have been a group celebration, so I’m sorry it ended that way. It’s just that bad. It truly stinks when people, especially kids, are hurt and lives are lost. I wish I could put it into better words.
The fans of the Bills and Chiefs have regularly given to each other’s charities in spite of their on-field rivalry.
Following their historic playoff encounter in 2021, Chiefs supporters sent a large-scale donation to Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, which Bills quarterback Josh Allen has worked with in the past. The Tyrann Mathieu charity, which is managed by the former Chiefs and current safety for the New Orleans Saints, has also received donations from Bills supporters.
Residents of Buffalo are particularly hurt by the shooting in Kansas City because a similar incident in May 2022 claimed ten lives.
“We’re all just people at the end of the day, right?” stated Reid. We all share this experience called life. You still want to lend a hand if you can, even if the person is in pain simply because they support the wrong team.
If there is one bright spot in this horrifying circumstance, it would be the millions of people who came together to assist the Kansas City community in the wake of the tragedy.
Reid remarked, “Being able to do it is an honor.” “It stinks that we have to do it for a reason. However, we must seize every chance to be kind and encouraging to those in need and to let them know that there are individuals in the other part of the nation who are concerned about them.