Update: Patricia Pinckney and Tasha Jones, the mothers of Demarcos Pinckney and Kevin Mason, reached their fundraising goal for the burials of their sons by the Wednesday deadline.

Original:

Patricia Pinckney and Tasha Jones lost their sons to gun violence on June 19. And in addition to grieving, they have had to spend much of the last two weeks stressed about money.

The two women, who are sisters, were of course unprepared for the grief of losing their sons, 15-year-old Demarcos Pinckney and 17-year-old Kevin Mason — two young cousins who have seven combined siblings, along with a tight-knit group of neighborhood friends. The two were killed by gunfire directed towards a residence on Langston Place SE following a Father’s Day celebration; the two boys were standing outside, and authorities have not said whether they were targeted or not.

Their mothers were also unprepared for all of the costs that have come in the aftermath of the tragedy. The two sisters are short about $20,000 for the joint burial of their boys, and a fundraiser has been set up online to help them raise money.

“I understand we should all have life insurance, but we don’t expect nothing like this to happen,” says Pinckney, Demarcos’s mother. “This is an extra layer of hurt, because on top of going through burying your child, you also have to worry about how you’re going to come up with the money to bury your child.”

Their struggle is a common one in D.C. and across the country, as funerals have become costly and families are often forced to make decisions about arrangements under emotional duress and time pressure. According to a survey of D.C. funeral homes conducted by D.C.’s Attorney General’s office back in 2017, basic service fees for funerals ranged anywhere from $965 to $9,200, but other costs — like embalming fees and caskets, can tally anywhere from $350 to $125,000 at the high end.

Outer burial containers, which enclose caskets in the ground and are sometimes required by cemeteries, add an additional cost. And some funeral homes charge extra for visitation. The assistance from D.C. Superior Court’s Crime Victims Compensation Program is frequently not enough to cover the full cost of what families consider a proper sendoff, advocates say.

As a result, community groups often fill in where government funds fall short, or in cases where a family doesn’t qualify for crime victims’ assistance. In 2020 and 2021, D.C.’s Black Lives Matter chapter spent $350,000 on funeral costs for families — including many who lost loved ones to gun violence — according to an impact report the organization released earlier this year.

Both Pinckney and Jones say they were surprised by just how many items had a cost attached. They have to pay for the burial site. There are fees associated with paperwork. There are fees attached to have extra men to help carry the caskets. And the burial costs they’re fundraising to cover doesn’t even include the headstones: One of the boys’ mentors has offered to help with that particular cost.

Kevin and Demarcos qualified for assistance through the D.C. Superior Court fund, so their mothers each got $10,000 from the city to cover funeral costs. But they say it’s only enough money to cover their joint funeral, and not the burials. And the clock is ticking. The ceremony is scheduled for Friday, and the deadline to come up with the remaining money is Wednesday. If they don’t, they’ll have to push the funeral back.

Coworkers at Audi Field, where the two sisters work, have also helped out. The Creative School, an organization that provides artistic mentorship and opportunities to young people in Southeast D.C., has also set up the fundraiser, because Demarcos and Kevin were both involved with the group. And the family has received other private donations, but they’re concerned they may still fall short.

“I don’t want them to sit any longer,” Jones says. “Because if they sit any longer, they’re not going to look the same. And I don’t want to have to keep waiting.”

“We have to go to organizations, get fundraisers and stuff like that just to help bury our children,” Pinckney says. “And it shouldn’t be like that. I think we just need to get more organizations to help.”

It’s added stress to the pain of loss — which has already been devastating — particularly, Jones says, because she had been trying to leave the neighborhood where her son was killed. She has witnessed other recent shootings on the grounds, right in front of their apartment building.

“I tried to keep [Kevin] safe,” Jones says. “I even tried to get him away from there. I was working two, three jobs to try to get away from there.”

“We wasn’t the type of parents who didn’t care about our kids. We made sure we kept an eye on them,” adds Pinckney.

In addition to navigating the logistics and costs of a funeral service and burial, the two mothers are left wondering why their sons were left so vulnerable to begin with. Both mothers are frustrated with the inability of city leadership to stop escalating gun violence. They want the city to start paying more attention to young boys in D.C. — both by offering them programming and enriching activities, and by making sure they don’t have seemingly unfettered access to guns and the ability to walk around the city with them.

“They need [police] checkpoints again,” says Jones.

In addition to her son and his cousin, 10 other kids in D.C. have been fatally shot this year. Demarcos is one of four children from his school, Digital Pioneers Academy, to be killed since the start of this past school year. Overall, 120 people in D.C. have died by homicide so far this year, a 15% increase from this time last year.

“Babies shouldn’t be able to have access to pick up a weapon. It’s just crazy. It’s nonsense. Something has to be done,” adds Pinckney.

The mothers know Demarcos and Kevin wanted their neighborhood and city to be different, too.

Pinckney describes her 15-year-old son Demarcos as a “people person” who loved to play football and basketball. And he “wanted to see a difference in the community,” she says. He wanted to be safe, she says, and “not worrying about whether today or tomorrow will be his last day.”

Kevin was a generous kid who “loved everybody,” says Jones. He took his younger siblings to school and picked them up where they were done.

And he wanted to see — and create — change for his community. In 2021, about two years before he was killed, Kevin shared those dreams in an interview with DCist/WAMU. He spoke about wanting to build a better community center in his neighborhood, and wanting adults to believe in his generation more, instead of stereotyping them as “demons.”

“You can’t just look at the kids wrong,” Mason said. “[The city] could come together and just do a meeting — let the kids come out, let the kids speak to the adults and let them know how they really feel. The adults should just take it in and think about it. I want them to be involved with us. I want them to hear, try and build things, remodel the community center, basketball courts. Just come together and help the kids out.”

Jones hasn’t brought her family back to the Langston Lane apartments since her son was killed there, because she doesn’t think her other kids will be safe in that neighborhood. She’s gotten support to stay temporarily at a hotel until July 19, and a city program has offered her some help for a move. But she’s concerned that the only place she’ll be able to afford to move her family will be another neighborhood plagued by gun violence.

“What if the people that did this is in one of them other neighborhoods?” asks Jones. “D.C. is small. Everybody knows everybody, so it’s not safe. If I could go to Maryland, somewhere far out in Maryland, I’ll go there. I don’t feel safe in D.C. no more.”