As France begins to recover from a horrific three-day terror spree that left 17 victims dead, donors have stepped up to support grieving family members and colleagues.
Several campaigns were launched with the hope of giving financial help to those impacted by the Charlie Hebdo and kosher market killings, the worst terrorist attack France has seen in 50 years.
Learn about the funds and how you can get involved below.
Donate to Families of Charlie Hedbo Victims
Brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hedbo on Wednesday morning where they gunned down 12 people, including eight journalists and two police officers, to avenge the honor of the Prophet Muhammad who was a frequent target of the satirical weekly.
To help the victim’s families during this trying time, David Opolon, who holds a Ph.D. from MIT, launched an online fundraiser in their honor, according to TechChrunch.
Hosted on French crowdfunding site Leetchi, the campaign aims to help mourning relatives and to "ensure the continuity of the paper," Opolon told the news outlet. Opolon hasn’t yet explained how the money will be distributed, but Leetchi announced that it will waive all processing fees.
Learn more about the campaign and how you can get involved here.
Support Funeral Fund for 6 Murdered Jews
In a linked attack on Friday, which President Hollande called "an appalling anti-Semitic act," suspected gunman Amedy Coulibaly, 32, held up a suburban kosher supermarket and murdered four Jewish men in an effort to keep police from killing the Kouachi brothers, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Coulibaly, who also murdered a policewoman on Thursday, justified the killings in a pre-recorded video in which he pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State group and admitted to helping to fund the Charlie Hedbo attacks, the Telegraph reported.
To help the grieving families, the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago has set up a funeral and burial fund. The campaign will help the families of the four men killed at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket, as well as those of Charlie Hedbo journalists Elsa Cayat and Georges Wolinski, who were both Jewish, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Find out more about the fund and how you can get involved here.
Help Keep Charlie Hebdo Alive
Its staff was decimated, but surviving Charlie Hedbo staff members have vowed to continue publishing, even without such visionaries as editor Stephane Charbonnier and famed cartoonist Jean Cabut.
The French press rallied together and raised half a million euros (more than $590,000) within 24 hours of the attack, according to the Independent, so that the controversial weekly can make good on its promise to publish 1 million issues of its next edition as soon as Wednesday. Its typical circulation is about 60,000, according to USA Today.
Half those funds were donated by the Press and Pluralism Fund and will be matched by the Google-backed Digital Press Innovation Fund.
Find out more about the Press and Pluralism Fund and how you can get involved here.
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