The Alajawan Brown Foundation will collect school supplies and backpacks Friday at Sam’s Club for kids who need them.
The foundation was created by Ayanna and Louis Brown, whose son was shot to death on April 29, 2010, at a 7-11 store on Martin Luther King Jr. Way where he had just gotten off a bus.
Alajawan was 12 years old when Curtis Walker shot him in the back, thinking the child was involved in gang dispute at a nearby apartment complex in which a friend of Walker’s was shot.
Walker was sentenced to 50 years in prison in March 2012.
For three years, the Browns have endeavored to make something good out of their son’s death. Alajawan wanted to make a difference in his community, his mother said, and that’s what she and Louis are trying to do through the foundation.
“Everything is going right back into the community,” she said.
Last year through donations and other efforts, the foundation collected about 1,000 backpacks for the kids of West Hill and beyond.
The Browns will collect the donations, including cash, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday (July 26) at Sam’s Club, 901 S. Grady Way, Renton. Anyone who can’t donate on Friday can bring backpacks and supplies to the Fire District 20 station, 12417 76th Ave. S., Skyway, which is partnering with the foundation.
This year the goal is 1,200 backpacks, which will be distributed in August.
“Our main focus is the West Hill community, but we aren’t turning anyone way,” she said. A child must accompany an adult for each backpack, she said.
The foundation has done three “community-building events” this year, including marking the third anniversary of Alajawan’s murder at the 7-11 store. About 200 people attended a family reunion at the new Grocery Outlet.
Brown and two other mothers who have lost a child to violence spoke at special event at the Seahawks headquarters in Renton. They thought they would speak with at-risk children and young adults.
But in the crowd were people “who run the streets,” Brown said, including one man who told her he recruited Walker into gang life.
He apologized to her.
