(Photo courtesy of Silver Rail Children’s Fund)
Eleven days ago, our children walked out of Silver Rail Elementary carrying something no child should have to carry. Tonight, some of them still sleep with the light on. Some flinch at a slammed door. Some have stopped asking to go to practice, or to a friend’s house, or anywhere at all. They are home, and they are safe, and they are not okay.
A group of Silver Rail parents has formed the Silver Rail Children’s Fund, a new Oregon nonprofit with one purpose: to make sure every child who was in that building that day, and survived it, has what they need to heal, now and for the long term.
The gap we saw
Bend has shown up for Silver Rail in a way that has left us in tears more than once. Money has poured in from neighbors, businesses, and strangers across the country. Much of it is going exactly where it should: to the families who lost the most, and to the school and the response.
But as parents, we kept asking the same question: who is this for, and when can our kids actually use it? We could not find a fund built around the children who were in the building that day and survived. Not for this month. Not for the long haul, when the cameras are gone and a seven-year-old is still afraid of the school hallway.
So we built one.
What the fund does
The Silver Rail Children’s Fund pays, directly to the business or provider, for the things a child needs to feel like a kid again: a day at a pumpkin patch, a ski pass, a museum visit, a movie with friends, a board game for the kitchen table, a box of art supplies so a child can draw what they can’t yet say out loud. Parents tell us what their child wants and needs. The fund pays for it, as funds allow. No cash ever goes to a family.
The first events are already on the calendar, and local businesses paid for them before we finished asking. On Friday, October 30, Deschutes Brewery is hosting a Halloween pizza day for Silver Rail kids and their parents in downtown Bend, with Whimsy with Purpose, and is donating the space, the food, and the staff time in full. A pumpkin patch outing before Halloween is covered by Midtown Yacht Club.
The fund is built to last. Every eligible child stays eligible until their 25th birthday, because the hardest days are not always the first ones. Grief and fear show up at a first sleepover, at the start of middle school, on a bad night in college. We intend to still be here.
Right now, the most urgent need is simple: board games, learning games, and art supplies in Silver Rail homes before winter sets in. Evenings are long, screens are a poor substitute, and a family that plays together at the table has somewhere safe to put a hard day. Those gifts cost a few dollars apiece and we want to get them into homes this month.
The fund also helps families with the paperwork nobody warned them about. Oregon’s Crime Victims’ Compensation program can reimburse counseling costs for children who were in the building, but it requires an application for each child and is easy to get wrong. Silver Rail parents now walk other parents through it, one on one, and the fund has published a plain-language guide to Oregon Crime Victims’ Compensation for Silver Rail families.
How it is run
The fund is a registered Oregon nonprofit led by a board of Silver Rail parents and built under the guidance of VictimsFirst, the national nonprofit founded by Anita Busch that has stood with families after mass-casualty events across the country, including Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde, and the Covenant School in Nashville. VictimsFirst’s model shaped the fund’s rules: gifts recognize trauma, not economic need; money goes to providers, never to parents; and the fund helps families find services they may not know exist. Everyone involved is completing trauma-informed training.
Every dollar the fund spends on a child is reviewed and voted on by a three-person Disbursement Committee that is independent of the board and has no Silver Rail parents on it, so the parents who run the fund can never decide on money for their own kids. Among its members is Chris Peak, a Bend parent with a child in the Bend-La Pine School District. Peak’s own family has lived through the aftermath of a mass shooting, and VictimsFirst helped them through what came after.
“I really admire what you’re building,” Peak said. “I understand firsthand how important it is to have something dedicated to the Silver Rail children, with clear guidelines, transparency, and a long-term commitment to the families.”
How to help
- Businesses: add a “Sponsor a Silver Rail kid” option at your register, or offer a group rate for a Silver Rail outing. Email hello@silverrailchildrensfund.org.
- Everyone else: give at com/f/silver-rail-kids-fun-fund-nve6k or learn more at silverrailchildrensfund.org.
“We can’t give our children back what October 15 took,” said Nicole Ybarrondo, a Silver Rail parent and director of the fund. “But we can give them new memories, and we can make sure that when they need something a year from now, or ten, someone is still there to say yes.”
About the Silver Rail Children’s Fund
The Silver Rail Children’s Fund is a parent-founded Oregon public benefit nonprofit (Oregon Registry No. 264524597, Tax ID 43-2607169) formed after October 15, 2026, to support the long-term recovery of the children of Silver Rail Elementary in Bend. Its first program, the Silver Rail Kids Fun Fund, pays local businesses and providers directly for experiences, activities, and play that help children heal. The fund is governed by a volunteer board and an independent disbursement committee, and operates under the guidance of VictimsFirst. A 501(c)(3) application is in progress.
silverrailchildrensfund.org
