Torontonians step up to help victims of Sunday's shooting on the Danforth

Violeta Budo never expected to be back working at Bell's Tailors and Dry Cleaners after selling the shop two years ago, but she says her retirement came to an abrupt halt Monday morning.

Budo says on Sunday night her husband received a text from someone related to the woman who bought their business. The text said the woman and her son were both among the 15 victims of the attack on the Danforth, and both were in hospital recovering from gunshot wounds.

"We were shaking," Budo said.

The news was devastating, and Budo says they immediately started thinking of ways they might be able to help.

"We said, 'Don't worry. We'll go to open the shop,'" Budo said, referring to the Dry Cleaning business she and her husband owned for more than two decades.

The next morning, Budo and her husband were there greeting customers, many of whom they hadn't seen in years. Budo says she was a little rusty at first, but it didn't take long to get right back into the swing of things.  

"When you do it for 20-years, you close the eyes to do things like this," she said.   

She was there for 12-hours that first day, but was happy to do it, if it was making life easier for her friends in the hospital. 

"I see what they went through, even if I'm tired, I said, 'No, I'm not tired,'" she said.

Budo has been at the dry cleaners every day since the shooting, and says she plans to continue working until the owners are ready to come back.

But she's not the only person who's been inspired to do good deeds in the wake of the tragedy.

'A beautiful young woman struggled for her life' 

Franca Matarozzo ran out of her apartment near Danforth and Logan avenues when she heard the gunshots Sunday night.

She says she saw five victims suffering from gunshot wounds. One of them was 18-year old Reese Fallon, one of the two people who died .

Matarozzo says several neighbours tried to comfort Fallon as they waited for first responders to arrive.

"A beautiful young woman struggled for her life," Matarozzo said

Matarozzo didn't know Fallon, but she says the next day she felt compelled to go back to the place where she died.

"I just went through the house, and I found a candle and a stuffed animal and I made a sign," Matarozzo said. "I just wanted to honour her courage and her life."

It didn't take long for other neighbours to start leaving flowers and messages in honour of Fallon at the site. Matarozzo says they started to talk to each other, and together they decided this space needed a permanent memorial.

"We thought it would be more meaningful to honour Reese Fallon with a bench where we can sit and honour her life."

The neighbours plan to take the idea to city hall, hoping to get council's support for a permanent memorial.

Matarozzo says it's now sacred space, and it's important that nobody forgets what happened.  

Kaya Malcolmson also lives in the Danforth and Logan area, and she is the same age as Fallon.  

"That also went to my heart, when I found out Reese was also 18," Malcolmson said. "I went to Riverdale Collegiate; she went to Malvern."

Malcolmson and her 21-year old brother Jowa came to drop flowers off at the memorial for Fallon on Monday. They say the flowers there, and at two other memorials nearby, were already starting to dry out from lying on the hot concrete.

They decided to go to a nearby dollar store and buy some buckets, fill tem with water and put the flowers in them. They bought every bucket in the store, but it wasn't enough to handle the piles of flowers that were growing by the hour.

They went to a couple of more dollar stores in the area and cleaned them out as well.  

"We just kept looking for buckets," Malcolmson said. "Big ones, small ones, anyone we could find to put these flowers in."

Malcolmson says they will continue to bring more buckets and water, as long as people keep coming with flowers.

"If I can just do this little thing, that will just make it a little bit better," Malcolmson said.

"That's something that I'm willing to do."