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PAGE 3 • MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2018
Three years after tragedy, Our Three Winners legacy lives on Mary Dare Martin
The canned food drive connects The Light House Project, the Islamic Association, NC State and other organizations to Marking the deaths of three Muslim help Food Bank of Central and Eastern students killed in February 2015, commuNorth Carolina. NC State also created a nities, organizations and students joined scholarship fund to honor Deah, Yusor together on Saturday to remember their and Razan in each of their fields of study. lives and continue to build their legacies “We worked with each of the colleges three years later. to say ‘How can we honor each of their “Our Three Winners” — Deah Baraindividual legacies in your college but kat, 23, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and Razan their collected legacy as three winners?’” Abu-Salha, 19 — were shot executionWoodson said. “Our goal was to create style in Deah and Yusor’s home located endowments in each of the three collegin a Chapel Hill apartment complex by es that would fund a minimum of two Craig Hicks, 46. Hicks was the upstairs scholarships and we’re well past that now. neighbor of Deah and Yusor, who were We’re funding at least two scholarships recently married in December 2014; Rain each college.” zan, the younger sister of Yusor and a The NC State Muslim Student Associastudent in NC State’s College of Design tion (MSA) will be collecting cans and at the time, had been visiting. nonperishable foods at one of their prayer Deah and Yusor were graduates of NC spaces in D.H. Hill throughout the month State in the Poole College of Management for the food drive, but also did its part to and the College of Sciences, respectively. remember the legacy of Deah, Yusor and Deah was a second-year student at the Razan through a basketball tournament UNC-Chapel Hill School of Dentistry dedicated to Deah this past Saturday. where Yusor planned to attend in fall “We’re also doing the ‘Dunking for 2015. They both dedicated their lives to Deah ’ basketball tournament,” said service through NC State’s Muslim StuMoneeb Sayed, a fourth-year studying dent Association, the Islamic Association science, technology and society and the of Raleigh and their community. president of MSA. “We’re going “It’s very hard to describe beto be donating a portion of the cause you don’t get people like proceeds to the Our Three Winthat very often,” said Fiaz Fareed, ners Foundation … when we’re the director of outreach at the Isdoing events, we want to remind lamic Association of Raleigh. “Bethe community about the lives cause they were the cream of the that they lived and the good that crop, as they say.” they’d done.” On the Thursday following the Sayed was also a student at the deaths of Deah, Yusor and Razan, university when Deah, Yusor and NC State came together with the Razan were killed. NC State held a Islamic Association of Raleigh vigil in the Brickyard the Thursto hold the funeral on Method day after the shooting occurred Fields. on Feb. 10. With more students “There was no parking all the who were present during the time way to Hillsborough,” Fareed of the Our Three Winners tragsaid. “It was an amazing sight. edy graduating, Sayed said that There were about close to 6,000 it’s become more important to that we counted, and then we gave remember their legacy. up because we could just not con“They were college students just tinue. There were easily, I think, like us,” Sayed said. “It could have more than 50 percent were nonbeen any one of us. That’s imporMuslims because they were so CAIDE WOOTEN/TECHNICIAN tant to learn from what happened, affected; they were so very well- Surrounded by the family members of slain students Deah Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and Razan to learn from the past and really Mohammad Abu-Salha, Chancellor Randy Woodson announces the University’s establishment of the “Our Three be more vocal about what we’re known.” Winners” scholarship endowment fund on Feb. 20, 2015 at the Roy H. Park Alumni Center . The endowment Chancellor Randy Woodson will provide annual financial support to NC State students studying in the Poole College of Management, doing, who we are, because really said that NC State was there to College of Sciences and College of Design. we’re all in the world together.” News Editor
help not only the mosque, but also the family, hold a funeral service for Deah, Yusor and Razan. “On the day of the event, I went to the mosque and met with the family,” Woodson said. “We reached out to the family to see how we could help. The original service commemorating their lives was held on our campus at the soccer fields near Method Road across the street from the mosque, so that was big. We held vigils on both campuses.” In response to the death of his brother, Farris Barakat, the executive director of The Light House Project, left his planned career path and devoted himself to renovating the 105-year-old house his brother had owned east of downtown Raleigh. “When my brother was murdered, the idea was, this house had to be inherited by someone and he didn’t have kids, so I guess it went back to the parents,” Barakat said. “They decided that they wanted to do something with the house to kind of further his legacy.” The house, which officially opened February 2017, was named after Deah, whose name means ‘light.’ Over the past year, it has served as a community center
for local youth and support system for startup nonprofit programs, all while educating people on what it truly means to be a Muslim American. “To figure out how to best accomplish that goal we came up with a model of fiscal sponsorship,” Barakat said. “Essentially like an incubator for nonprofit programs … kind of [create] a second environment for companies to come get guidance, and it’s a good environment for them to learn and support their need.” Along with the legacy it continues to hold for Our Three Winners throughout the year, The Light House Project has celebrated the lives of Deah, Yusor and Razan throughout the month with a spoken word performance, an award honoring those who have served their community and a canned food drive that goes until Feb. 24. “The fact that people continue to do things in their honor, I think speaks so much about who they were and also good intentions,” Barakat said. “We can all get involved in something … they were doing good enough work that everyone else felt like they wanted to step up and take on something.”
