Omarion Humphrey Memorial Fund.

Hello all. My name is Tiffany. My friend Erika and I are woking on this campaign to raise money to get a memorial put up at Lake Callis in Davison, Michigan. 
On July 4th a young boy named Omarion "Mars" Humphrey came to our new man-made lake/ splash pad to celebrate the holiday with his foster family. Omarion can be seen in video clips splashing around, being a kid, and having what looks like the best day of his life.
And then, wihout a trace, he vanished.  Mars was severely autistic, and non verbal, so searching was beyond difficult. It was a race against time, as the boy went missing in the evening and only had on swim trunks: no shirt, no shoes.. It was chilly, and if you live in the area, you know that the mosquitos this year are absolutely terrible! 
The police were asking anyone and everone to come out that evening and help search.  ABC12's timeline with updates on the search and the aftermath. 
Our entire community as well as police officers from here and surrounding communities, search and rescue, search dogs, helicopters, mounted officers, army reserves, and so many other volunteers came together to search every day and every night  to find him. The Salvation Army was so kind and brought out food trucks to fuel us for searching and local grocery stores, businesses, and community members donated cases of water, bug spray, flashlights, and anything else to help us out. Volunteers searched high and low relentlessly, for days, all hoping for the best outcome. Erika and myself, put in about 25 hours total each, blood, bruises, sweat, and tears into finding this poor child each day that he was missing. 
On Thursday, July 9th there was a professionally executed search of professionals only (of about 500) who searched a five mile radius of the lake, and found nothing. At that point the search was scaled back and our Lake Callis was set to be open again to the public the next day. 
On Friday, July 10th, after 6 days missing, and the first day that the lake was opened back up, Omarions tiny frail body surfaced in the lake around 12:30 in the afternoon and dozens of cilvilians watched in horror as our greatest fear was revealed. The boy had drowned and was not found by dive teams in the initial search. This loss has been so hard for everyone after all of the searching, and praying and hoping for a safe return, and then having it end the way that it did, It has been tough for not only the volunteers, both civilian and professional, but also on our lake's supervisors and employees, as well as our community as a whole.
 Omarion "Mars" had to endure and overcome so much in his life and we just dont feel right in our hearts letting that be the end of his story, so we got the idea to put something there in his honor. We would love to be able to have our community as a whole put the devistation behind us, and move forward with something positive at the lake to commemorate his short life. It would be great to have something positive to see and for everyone else to see whenever they go to the lake so that they can feel safe and comfortable and enjoy the Michigan summer with their families at Lake Callis and see a piece of him live on there forever.
By spreading the word about Omarion's story and his memorial we are also hoping to raise some sort of 't do it for themselves. We just cant imagine a short life like Omarion's going without honor. 

DONATION INFORMATION:


We have received township approval to have something at the lake in his memory and met with the parks and rec director. I have set a 1$ goal, because there are many sponsorship opportunities available, so this page will be left up for one month, until August 14th and the more we are able to raise, the bigger the memorial item will be. However, for those who may not have debit/credit cards or would just like to avoid the percentages and fees that will be deducted from donations by the gofundme company (5% of each donation) as well as the wepay company (2.9% + $0.30 per donation), cash donations can also be made, and I will be more than happy to come to you to collect them, just get in touch with me, via email.  
  
Any funds left over will be donated to The Autism Safety Coalition: Avonte's Law. 
If anyone has any questions, I have set up an email address specifically for communications during this process, it is: [email redacted]


** Davison Township, and Lake Callis are in no way affiliated with the fundraising portion of this campaign. Memorial will be purchased from them, but they are not involved in fundraising.


Thank you in advance for all of your help and support throughout this process. God bless.