- Most of you know, I was born and raised
in Fort Worth, Texas.
Although I don't live there,
Texas will always be my home.
This summer, my state suffered one of the worst tragedies
in our history when 19 students and two teachers
were gunned down in Uvalde.
Like all of you, when I heard the news, it was devastating.
And I think it's hard too.
Like I said earlier,
I think of you in terms of like, how do you,
'cause you've been to Uvalde.
You've covered stories like this,
like how do you do that,
especially being a dad and a granddad?
How do you process that?
- You do it sometimes through clenched teeth.
- Yeah. - But at the same time,
I don't wanna live in a world
where that becomes so routine that I can just say that
and then go home and have a normal evening.
- You don't wanna be desensitized.
- I don't wanna be desensitized.
So, it almost is a moment of like, I'm still good.
I'm still a human being.
That this is something that we all in our divided world,
this is something that we can all agree on,
that this is absolutely horrible.
It strikes to the worst possible thing that we can imagine.
- Your kid should be safe at school.
- Sure.
- [Kelly] Yeah, that's it.
(audience applauding)
They should be safe going to school.
And as Lester saw and as the world has seen
in our darkest moments, Texans can come together y'all.
And this week, I was in Uvalde to witness firsthand
how this community is healing and rebuilding.
(video swooshes)
We heard about these murals that were being painted
and kind of memorializing the victims
and who they were as individuals
and I really wanted to see them.
I wanted to see them in person.
I wanted to see how this healing is happening
in this community and I wanted to be here.
Just driving through here, it's like,
it literally looks like Burleson, where I grew up.
Our first stop,
How are you doing man?
I'm a hugger! - I'm okay.
- [Kelly] was to meet Abel Ortiz,
Uvalde resident and art professor,
who came up with the idea for the mural project.
This is such a beautiful, beautiful project
that you're doing.
- Thank you.
First of all, thank you for being here and pay homage
and your respect to the victims and the families.
I was really honored to paint whoever I would
I would wind up painting. - Yeah.
- But I do have connections to Ellie's family.
The mural that I painted
and it's right around the corner.
- Oh my gosh.
- This is Ellie.
- [Kelly] Oh my gosh.
- [Abel] She was robust, full of life and
every day was special for her.
- [Kelly] That is so beautiful.
Oh God. This is ... - [Abel] Thank you, thank you.
So each mural is gonna tell you their story.
It's a baseball card design
because she won the championship the Saturday before.
- Oh really?
- [Abel] Yeah. That's why I put champion on her.
- Ah. I love that.
- It's our response to that tragedy
that we're gonna be defined by
and the murals provide that positive path
towards that redefinition of our community
and us as individuals.
- And what a beautiful way for these family members
to get to come and see them like this.
- [Abel] Yes. - [Kelly] Ugh.
In person they're massive.
- [Abel] Yes. They have to be monumental.
- Yeah.
- Because the pain is monumental.
- Wow. I can't imagine.
Next Abel and I went to meet Monica Maldonado
the founder of the art based non-profit MAS Cultura
worked tirelessly organizing this massive project.
So you found a bunch of Hispanic artists, right?
Latin artists, right?
- [Monica] Knowing that Uvalde is
upwards of 82% Hispanic,
it definitely was important for me
that the artists be Latino.
- [Abel] Sometimes you can't express with words,
what you can with visuals
and you connect the dots in a sense.
You build the life of the child,
as you explore across the whole mural.
- [Monica] This is Uziyah.
There was just a very caring and compassionate kid
that really just wanted to make the world a better place.
And there's a story about him where he's got this cookie
and one of his classmates ask him for a piece of it
and he takes it and he crumbles it up
and he shares it with the rest of his class.
And when I heard that story
I knew immediately that Rich would have to paint him
because Rich is the same way.
- [Kelly] Ah.
- Eliana Torres
- [kELLY] Eliana. Beautiful.
- [Monica] She actually was up to be on the all-star team.
And that day that this happened
she would've found out that she had made the all-star team.
- Oh.
- Amerie. This medal was given to her by the girl Scouts.
Amerie dialed 911 while she was in the classroom
trying to save her friends.
- [Kelly] Wow.
- This is a blank canvas.
And our plan is to put all the names here.
We will continue efforts of fundraising through the GoFundMe
and this is ...
- And probably money to preserve as well.
- [Monica] Mm hm, Yeah. - [Abel] Yes
- [Monica] So we'll be using the money to preserve ...
- [Kelly] Well, we actually heard
that y'all were needing more funds
so we wanted to help y'all.
So we're gonna give y'all $10,000 just to help out.
- (gasps) Oh my goodness.
- Just to help out, like it's the least we can do.
It's so important for people to come see this.
- [Abel] That's gonna basically complete the
the project for us.
- Oh my God.
- Because we're struggling with the funds here at the end.
And so that's gonna really, really,
you don't know how happy I am right now.
- Oh we wanted to help. Oh.
- Thank you so much.
- Oh my God, absolutely.
- [Monica] Yes, thank you. Thank you.
- You guys are the angels.
Thank you so much.
It's such a, it's such an amazingly cool thing to do
in such a horrific, you know, situation.
It's devastating what has happened,
but to also like see these murals
and experience what they were like living,
like it's life, and that's how you want to,
Well, that's how I would want my child ...
This summer my home state of Texas suffered
one of our worst tragedies
when 19 fourth grade students and two teachers
were gunned down in Uvalde.
I recently visited this small community to see how
an extraordinary project is honoring the lives lost.
Artists from across Texas are painting individual murals
for each of the victims. It's so beautiful.
One of those artists is Juan Velázquez
and he's joining us now. So give it up for Juan.
- Thank you.
- And he's already met Darcy and Lester
in the break and I'm so sorry.
It's just every time I say those stats, I can't get over it.
I don't think anybody ever will
but you are the first muralist, right?
- Correct.
- So how did you choose who you were
you were gonna do the mural of.
- Well, I did a mural for Alicia Ramirez.
She was 10 years old and she was an artist.
And I remember looking at the news and seeing her artwork
and because I'm an artist too, like I connected with that.
And I'm from Fort Worth Texas. - [Kelly] Mm hm.
And I paint murals after the pandemic.
I left my job and just decided to be a full-time muralist.
And I saw how me painting the communities
brought people together and, - [Kelly] Inspires, hope,
- [Juan] Inspires hope and I sort of wanted to
do the same thing for Uvalde.
- [Kelly] Mm. Absolutely.
How did you get involved in the project?
- [Juan] Well, you know, I, when watching the news
and I just, I'm in the military,
I consider myself a strong, serious person
but you know, I broke down seeing that
I have a four year old daughter,
actually, she just turned five two days ago
and I couldn't even imagine losing a child.
- Mm. - And I felt like
I needed to do it.
And we were able to put her artwork on the mural.
So if you actually see her t-shirt
that's her actual artwork.
One of those from a father's day card
that she gave to her dad. - [Kelly] Oh, wow.
- And in a way I wanted people to remember her,
but also remember her artwork.
- Cuz that's what was important to her.
- Yeah.
- [Kelly] Yeah. That's beautiful.
And I love the connecting.
And Alicia's artwork is living on.
Actor Matthew McConaughy who's from Uvalde,
brought Alicia's artwork to the White House.
Another drawing appeared on Google's homepage,
and several others were donated to a gallery.
So what did a Alicia's family think when you did it?
- [Juan] You know, we were there, it was 110 degree weather.
It was brutal. And we were about to leave.
We were eating and Monica called me and she said,
"Hey. The dad wants to talk to you and Sarah",
since we were the two main artists that painted the mural
and we had never spoken to the dad, they were very private
and we wanted to respect their privacy.
But I remember when I pulled up,
he was like looking at the mural and he was smiling
and it sort of made all that worth it, you know?
And I remember talking to him and I wanted to say it, I,
the whole time I was thinking
everything I wanted to tell him
and I really couldn't speak.
All I told him is I'm so sorry.
- [Kelly] Yeah. - I'm so, so sorry.
And the whole time I was thinking
about what I was gonna say, and I just,
I was trying not to you know, have him comfort me
and break down so I was just,
I just told him, like, I'm so sorry.
Like I didn't wanna make it about me.
So I just said, I'm so sorry.
- What a beautiful thing though
in such a dark moment that you made him smile.
You've spoken to families like this before.
What do, and like I've said before, you're a dad.
Like, how do you speak to these families
without appearing like this?
- [Lester] You know, there's, you do appear like this.
- [Kelly] Yeah. - I remember sitting down
with one family and they were just pouring their heart out.
And I remember the mother was,
she was feeling this blame
because she had visited the school earlier that day.
They had given, you know, year end awards.
And she said, "I'll pick you up later on".
I mean, just, you know. What do you say to that?
- [Kelly] Yeah. The what ifs. - [Lester] The what ifs.
And so the conversation really becomes
when we do these stories for nightly news
is how do we honor the children?
How do we put a face and a story to these lives?
I mean, we're all, you know, we're all shattered
but at the same time we deserve to know
who these young people were. - [Kelly] Mm.
- [Lester] We'll never know what their potential was,
you know? How they might have impacted, you know,
their community or discovered something important.
But it is important that we give the families some time
to recognize and to to give them a platform, if you will,
as difficult as it is.
And then it's your point.
You just don't know what to say.
- I think how we honor them is we hope
that it never happens. Can we do things,
- [Lester] Amen. - [Kelly] to implement
that change so that doesn't happen.
- [Audience Member] Yeah! (audience clapping)
- Nobody needs, deserves that.
So Juan is one of several artists painting murals
dedicated to the victims in Uvalde, Texas.
It's one way this small community is healing and rebuilding
but there's so much more happening there.
This summer, Texas based grocery chain HEB
along with the Butt family, pledged $10 million
to build a brand new elementary school, which is incredible.
And here to talk about the project
is Julie Beddingfield from HEB,
along with Josh Brown, the architect
who is designing this school. Hello guys!
Thank you so much for joining us.
So Julie, this is huge. It's an incredible thing.
So why was this so important to HEB?
- Yeah. Well, Kelly, I know you're from Texas
but a lot of the audience may not be
and they're asking what's an HEB.
- Yeah. We know. Yeah. - [Julie] We know. We know.
But we're a Texas based retailer
that was founded in 1905 and we've been serving Uvalde
for more than 60 years.
So to say that the Butt family and HEB
is deeply connected to this community
would be an understatement.
And, you know, I can say personally
driving to Uvalde the morning of May 25th
was very difficult. Talking to my husband on the phone
who didn't wanna drop our daughter off at school.
And you don't have to be a parent
to just feel the weight of this so deeply.
And I didn't realize the amount of trauma and loss
that I was walking into.
And that was not a unique story for me.
And I have a lot of pride in wearing my HEB badge.
And so do everybody who works for HEB.
So, you know, we want a school to be a sense of place.
We think our grocery stores, our churches
our schools provide community,
especially in towns like Uvalde. Small towns.
So it was a no brainer for us to be able to
make this initial gift of $10 million.
And this is for the kids there
and to get them back on a path of healing.
- Absolutely. Well, schools, they're your specialty.
Right, Josh? This is your specialty.
What you're doing, right?
- Absolutely. You know, much like HEB
we're a Texas based company.
We were founded in 1967, doing educational facilities
in the state of Texas. All over the state of Texas.
And that's been our sole focus for that 55 years.
But as far as, kind of what we're,
what our focus is right now with Uvalde
is really one of just being a great active listener, right?
- [Kelly] Yeah. - At the end of the day,
there's a lot of emotions. There's a lot of things going on.
There's a lot of things that needed to be sorted out.
And so as the designer, we wanna make sure
that we take the time to listen, to understand,
to really hear perspectives and thoughts and opinions
and make sure we formulate all of that.
Because at the end of the day
what we're trying to accomplish is a facility
that is going to give a sense of community.
That's going to get a sense of confidence.
Is going to portray a sense of safety for all those students
and educators that are going back to that building.
And that, that community can rally around.
- Yeah. When, Lester, when you return to communities
like Sandy Hook or Uvalde years later, what,
what do you notice?
- You know, what I notice is they don't accept the label
of being a bad place.
They recognize that something bad happened
in their community and people won't forget the name,
but that doesn't mean these are bad communities.
And what I'm always struck by is how these communities
are able to create, help us think of other things,
including this kind of philanthropy.
People standing up. People comforting.
That's the legacy that I think, you know,
gives strength, is these communities
trying to find their footing.
- [Kelly] Mm hm. And it's amazing to see
how the communities are stepping up.
And they're, they're lending a hand,
they're building these schools,
they're doing so many things for these kids,
but the real, the real honor is
not having to have any parent have that call.
I always get very tired of hearing about,
oh, our thoughts and our prayers are with you.
Of course they are, but we need change.
And we need leaders who implement change.
So our kids, so you don't hear kids saying
I'm afraid to go to school. Like, you know,
it's the craziest thing in the world to me
that it's even a, I mean how many of these schools
are gonna have to be hit in order for people
to fricking do something, you know?
And it's amazing cuz all the communities are doing stuff.
They're helping each other. They're lifting each other up.
But until we actually do something as a nation,
it's a problem.
I am coming, not from a political standpoint,
from a mother's. And it's frightening.
It's so, and that's every,
I literally talk to mothers all the time.
I'm sure you do too.
You have kids. It's like, this is not,
this is a no brainer. There is a lot of problems.
Yes. Mental illness.
Yes. All these things are happening
but quit politicizing at everyone
and just rally around these communities
and make actual change,
because we are afraid to send our kids to school.
Public or private, doesn't matter.
Anyway, I'm just tired.
I think all of us are tired.
When will the school be ready for the kids?
Do they know?
- [Julie] So our, our hope is that
we're serving students in this school by 2024
but we're gonna do things thoughtfully
and intentionally to do them right.
- [Kelly] Amen.
Well, the Uvalde, CISD Moving Forward Foundation
has already received some big donations
but they still need more funding.
And today we'd like to donate $10,000 to the project.
And to build the school every penny counts, y'all.
It doesn't matter, big or small,
whatever you can give can help rebuild,
and to donate use the QR code on your screen right now
or check out kellyclarksonshow.com for more information.