More than 200 friends and family members packed the Woodlawn Faith United Methodist Church to mourn the loss of 30-year-old Joseph Khiante Hardin earlier this year.
Hardin was shot Feb. 23 outside a nightclub in Northwest D.C. He was survived by his parents and siblings, and two young sons.
The LeFrankal Williams Foundation, an organization that offers free obituaries to families of homicide victims in the District, printed an altar poster, a collage of photographs chronicling Hardin’s life, hundreds of professional programs, and thank you notes for the family to distribute during and after the funeral.
With four core board members and a support base of volunteers and donors, the LeFrankal Foundation has held more than 20 funeral services free of charge.
The group’s CEO, LaChelle Anderson, launched the organization a year after her cousin, LeFrankal Williams, was murdered in 2010. At the time of his death, Williams’ family could not afford to honor their son with the sort of memorial they thought was appropriate.
Her cousin didn’t have life insurance, Anderson said. Though the D.C. government, like Virginia and Maryland, provides money to victims of homicide, the amount was not enough for the Williams family to print professional obituaries.
Anderson said she was distraught by the state of her cousin’s funeral service.
“They provided ten pieces of copying paper with a staple on the left hand corner like a project for school,” she said. “My heart just crumbled.”
The experience compelled Anderson to create the foundation in her cousin’s honor, with the intent to help families honor the last memories of their loved ones.
Today, the group is proactive, reaching out to homicide victims’ families. When Hardin died in February, the group’s vice president, Gregory Torrence, went straight to the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch. Torrence contacted Pamela Williams, Hardin’s mother, and became not only a funeral planner, but a source of emotional support.
“During this time, it’s a grieving time. You’re confused and you tend to forget a lot of things,” Williams said. “It was like a guardian angel was sitting there with me, guiding me through the whole process. [Torrence] was there every step of the way… I wish I had known about this service four years ago, when my daughter was killed.”
According to Torrence, the cost of obituaries can be as high as $420 to $500. The foundation is struggling to raise funds to support the demand. “Quite a bit of the money does come out of our pockets,” he said.
To offset the organization’s depleted funds, Torrence plans to recruit teenagers having trouble with school to take over the assembly and design of the obituaries. His goal for this program is not just to give these teenagers graphic design skills. He also plans to have students make their own obituaries, as a motivational exercise.
The goal is to help the teens “understand the devastation that happens to the family in a simple two-second act of pulling a gun and pulling the trigger,” he said. “I think if you had to sit down and make your own obituary… it may just open their eyes, if nothing else.”
Eventually, Torrence says the foundation hopes to expand to Prince George’s County. Until then, the group’s four board members continue to cushion the pain of crime victims in the D.C. community, armed with compassion and a towering stack of tributes to lives lost too soon.
Learn more at the www.lefrankalwilliamsfoundation.org.
