For those who escaped Tops alive, trauma and a question: What now?

In front of her was a line of 10 white dove-shaped signs with the names of the people who lost their lives in the massacre.

Her name could have easily been on one of those doves, along with the names of her boyfriend, Lamont Thomas, and their 8-year-old daughter Londin.

But somehow they survived. Thomas hid in a cooler at Tops with Londin. Harwell said she crawled on the floor to a back exit, getting trampled along the way.

They are grateful beyond words for being alive and grieve for those who didn’t make it out.

But now they are dealing with the trauma of what they experienced, along with everyday life.

Before the attack, Thomas and Harwell, who have three children together, had to move out of their last home and move in with Thomas’ mother while they try  to save enough money for a security deposit on a new place to rent.

“We’re homeless right now,” Harwell said. “It’s hard because apartments are so expensive right now.”

Harwell and Thomas both have jobs. “But it’s never enough. Now I’m trying to decide between using my money for a therapist or an apartment.”

There has been a tremendous outpouring of love and support for the families of the victims of those killed and three people wounded in the May 14 killing spree.

The other survivors need help, too.

Pastor Tim Newkirk of GYC Ministries wants to draw attention to a larger circle of victims – the workers and the shoppers who may not have been physically hurt, but are now coping with the horror of what they endured.

“They need respite,” Newkirk said, putting his arm around Harwell.

He’s hoping that organizations will step up to also support the survivors with services, financial help and gifts to lift their spirits.

Ministering to the victims

Newkirk, whose GYC Ministries falls under the umbrella of the Back-to-Basics Ministries, advocates for the victims of crimes. He has organized vigils for Buffalo’s victims of street violence and put up a billboard in the search for Jaylen Griffin, who was 12 years old when he was last seen in August 2020.

Almost from the moment of the attack on May 14, Newkirk has been ministering to the survivors. Among them is his sister, Shonnel Harris, an operation manager at Tops, and her niece, who also worked at the store.

Newkirk was driving on Jefferson Avenue, on his way to meet up with two members of the Peacemakers, at Tops. They were going to pick up some ice cream for an event later in the day that the Peacemakers violence interruption group was holding with members of the local Muslim community.

Newkirk said he was on the phone with one of the Peacemakers who he was going to meet at the store when she said she heard gunfire at the store.

They all raced toward Tops.

At first, Newkirk thought it could have been a shooting involving gangs, or maybe even something like a drone in the air firing shots.

But it soon became clear this was something else.

“This is different,” Newkirk said. “This is something that we never experienced before.”

Nevertheless, as someone who ministers to the victims of crime, he went to see if he could help.

“We were trained for this, to go toward the violence, to go toward the fire,” he said, “to see who we can save.”

Newkirk knew that the employees like his sister often congregated outside the back of the store and went there.

He saw a chaotic scene.

“They were running all over the place and falling over each other,” Newkirk said. “We were trying to get everyone together. Parents were looking for their kids. People that were in the parking lot – they didn’t know what to do.”

He found Harris and embraced her on Riley Street. He then encouraged the shaken workers to form a prayer circle in the middle of the street, by then blocked off by police cars and yellow crime scene tape.

An uncertain future

On the one-week anniversary of the Tops massacre, Newkirk was with Harwell and Thomas. Their daughter Londin was at a friend’s pool party. They’re trying to keep her distracted.

At night they watch movies together, but when they fall asleep, Harwell said, “We always end up back at Tops.”

“How are you having the same dream I’m having?” she asked her daughter.

“I’m just worried about her right now,” she said.

Harwell and Thomas said they have tried to come back to Jefferson Avenue every day to volunteer. They have helped give away food, and one day they brought Londin and together they handed out toys to neighborhood children.

“This is self-care,” Harwell said.

They’re trying to figure out what to do next.

Harwell works as a chef. Thomas had been assistant manager at the Dollar General, but quit because they couldn’t afford child care for the kids, ages 3, 4, and 8, and Harwell was making more money.

To help stretch their money, they moved in with Thomas’ mom and have been trying to find a nice place for their family that they can afford.

"I'm not trying to milk anything," she said. "I just have so much stuff going on in my life."

Jerome Bridges, a Tops worker who is another survivor, also attended the 123 seconds of silence event on Saturday. He, too, is worried about what will happen in the future.

Bridges was pricing items when the shooting began. Two other workers were running toward him and there were five customers nearby. They all ran into an employee conference room where they pushed a large table against the door and hid.

For now, Bridges said, he’s doing OK financially. Tops has said it would continue to pay the workers from the store, which remains closed and surrounded by fencing.

“We don’t know how long they are going to pay our salaries, but they said they was going to pay. We just don’t know for how long,” Bridges said.

“I’m just looking at the long-term financial [situation] until they decide to open back up,” he said. Tops officials have vowed to reopen the store, but have not given a timeline.

Bridges said he believes that the store will be reopened. “ They’re just going to remodel it and make it look a whole lot better. So, it’s going to look different on the inside than it was before,” Bridges said.

When it reopens, Bridges said he believes he’ll be ready to walk through those doors again. “I should be able to. I should be able to.”

Complete coverage: 10 killed, 3 wounded in mass shooting at Buffalo supermarket

The East Side needs it to reopen, he said. “It’s very important. Everybody came here to shop.”

He added: “For this to happen, the guy tried to break our spirit. And it didn’t. It just made us come together.”

Newkirk hopes that will include the survivors, too.

"Our prayers, in our church and our community, goes out to all the victims who passed in this massacre but we also need especially to keep close to our heart the victims who survived this massacre," Newkirk said. "That's not something we want to lose sight of."