‘WE CAN DO IT’
The nation’s only child-coffin maker is shipping them to Trey Ganem, who is determined that each massacre victim’s resting place tells the story of their young life.
The nation’s only manufacturer of children’s coffins received 19 urgent orders in the aftermath of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
“When we had Sandy Hook, that was another crazy day,” Mike Mims, CEO of Cherokee Caskets of Georgia, told The Daily Beast. “So we’re tired. We’re tired of doing these things.”
The Cherokee factory in Griffin, Georgia, ran full-tilt for 20 straight hours from Wednesday into Thursday. One difference between the two school massacres was that the 20 coffins after Sandy Hook in 2012 went to individual funeral directors in Connecticut. The funeral directors in Uvalde decided that it should all go through a single casket distributor and customizer, Trey Ganem of SoulShine Industries in Edna, Texas.
Ganem had managed to handle most of the coffins for the 26 killed in the Sutherlands Spring church mass shooting in 2017. He was now asked to furnish caskets for the 21 who died at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, including the two teachers.
“The funeral directors know who I am, and they said, ‘If anybody can do it, you can. Would you help out in Uvalde?’” Ganem told The Daily Beast. “I said, ‘100 percent.’”
Ganem added that he would cover the cost of the coffins, around $3,400 each. And he would not charge for any customizing.
Courtesy Trey Ganem
The 19 child-size coffins were scheduled to arrive at SoulShine at 2 a.m. Friday.
“We already have the adult [coffins],” Ganem told The Daily Beast as he returned from buying extra paint.
Ganem began consulting with the Uvalde families on Wednesday at the Civic Center and on Thursday at their homes. He sought to determine what individual touches they might want.
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