A GoFundMe for the family of a 13-year-old boy from Staten Island, New York, who killed himself and left a note saying he was bullied, has raised tens of thousands of dollars.
As of Thursday, more than $127,000 was donated to the “Danny Fitzpatrick memorial fund.”
“We had NO idea we would go past our goal and receive so much feedback. With all these responses and support we would love nothing more than to donate to a organization that fights bullying and encourages suicide awareness,” a person claiming to be Danny’s oldest sister, Eileen, wrote on the page.
Last Thursday, Danny’s body was found in the attic of the family’s home. He had previously mentioned that he was “constantly” bullied at school and claimed that friends at Holy Angels Catholic Academy in Brooklyn didn’t like him and stopped talking to him.
“I gave up,” he wrote in a handwritten note he left behind. “The teachers either they didn’t do ANYTHING!”
“My son shouldn’t have to die to be heard,” his mother Maureen Fitzpatrick told the New York Daily News. “There’s something wrong with the adults in authority positions when kids can’t go to them for help.”
“No parent is supposed to bury their child,” she said.
He wrote that a group of five boys had bullied him continuously. “They did it constantly,” he wrote, according to the Daily News. “I ended up fighting (one boy) and got a fractured pinkie.”
They also targeted him in gym class, and a teacher apparently embarrassed him, calling him “lazy” in front of other students, the father of the boy said.
“He just wanted to be a kid,” his mother said. “He didn’t want to be involved in things that were too mature for him.”
At his funeral on Aug. 22, more than 100 people attended, the New York Post reported. “I feel so bad. I can’t imagine how his family feels about it. It’s just so terrible how kids bully,” a 13-year-old friend of Danny’s said at the funeral.
Holy Angels, the school, issued a statement, saying staffers did “everything in their power” to help Danny.
“Conflicts with other students were never ignored,” the school told the Post. “The school provided counseling for Daniel, suspended students accused of bullying him and met with those students’ parents.”
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