HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — This week marks two years since the death of 13-year-old Lucia Bremer, who was shot nine times in a Henrico neighborhood in 2021. For the past two years, her friends and family have turned their loss into an act of service for others.
This weekend, family and friends of Bremer plan to host a food drive at the Canterbury Recreation Center in Tuckahoe for the second year in a row.
Angie Hutchison, Facility Manager at Canterbury Recreation, said that Bremer had a light that radiated throughout the community, and the food drive will allow those who knew her to keep that light shining.
“She was a beautiful little girl with a lot of light,” Angie Hutchison, Facility Manager at Canterbury Recreation, said. “I knew her personally, we all miss her. But this is just something that we can do in her memory.”
Bremer was walking with a friend through the Gayton Forest West subdivision on March 26, 2021 when she was shot nine times.
This January, 16-year-old Dylan Williams, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, pled guilty to first degree murder and attempted murder charges in connection to Bremer’s death. Williams reportedly did not know Bremer.
In the aftermath of her death, the Bremer family proposed the idea of a food drive at the Canterbury Recreation Center on the one-year anniversary of the shooting. After the success of the 2022 drive, the event is taking place again this weekend.
“Last year we had people bring bag after bag,” Hutchison said. “We had people just roll up with a can of tuna. We welcome it all.”
Hutchison says the drive, which works with FeedMore, was a success last year, and her team is looking forward to impacting even more families this year.
“It’s very touching to watch, you know, little children bring you up some donations,” Hutchison said. “People that have never met the Bremers, people that just say, ‘I want to help.’ It’s also a way we can grieve together and be together and just have that true sense of community.”
The drive will be held on Saturday, March 25 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the parking lot of the Canterbury Recreation Center, which is located at 1300 Pump Road in Tuckahoe. The drive will be held again on Sunday, March 26 from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.
