GA Company Helps Texas Man Make Custom-Painted Caskets For Texas School Shooting Victims

GEORGIA — A local company has provided caskets for some of the victims of the Uvalde school shooting in Texas, according to reports.

Cherokee Child Caskets confirmed to WSB-TV that the company sent several caskets to Trey Ganem, who is customizing the caskets for the victims of the school tragedy, free of charge. Nineteen children and two adults were killed last month by an 18-year-old shooter, identified as Salvador Ramos, during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas. Ramos was killed in the shooting by law enforcement officers.

Ganem operates SoulShine Industries out of Eden, Texas. The I’m From Denver Facebook post on Tuesday showed how Ganem has personalized the caskets with movie and cartoon characters.

Related: Custom-Painted Caskets Remember Kids Killed At Texas Elementary School

The family-run business has been operating since 1941, with Michael Mims taking over in 2005, reported WXIA-TV. He said he heard about the tragedy on the radio and quickly turned his grief into action.

"Immediately, I text my son and told him 'all hands on deck tomorrow morning,' which would have been Wednesday," Mims explained.

According to the Facebook post, this job was an “enormous task for a small town with limited local resources.”

“The race to supply caskets for 19 children began when Ganem, of SoulShine Industries, responded to messages on Facebook and a few calls from people in the death care industry, including one from someone at the Texas Funeral Directors Association asking for help.

“But smaller caskets are rarely stocked in bulk. So Ganem, who is based in Edna, Texas, near the Gulf Coast, had to order them from a manufacturer in Griffin, Georgia, potentially jeopardizing on-time deliveries for grieving families whose funeral services would start within a week.”

Ganem received an overwhelming amount of messages to help, according to the Facebook post. He was ready to help the families in time.

“Ganem said the manufacturer worked for 20 hours straight to get the orders out on time. Then his close friend Bubba Hoffman hired a Texas trucking company to make the 26-hour trip from Texas to Georgia and then back to Texas. When the delivery arrived at 2 a.m. Friday, Ganem and his son Billy Ganem worked nonstop, getting only a couple of hours of sleep,” the post said.

Ganem said that he had more than a dozen volunteers offer to help paint, sand, and apply vinyl to the child-size caskets.

“By Saturday, the crew was making the three-and-a-half-hour drive to Uvalde from Edna to donate eight completed caskets. Ganem expects to deliver the remaining caskets Sunday. In all, he prepared 19 caskets for Uvalde victims: 18 of the 19 children and one adult,” the post said.