Families of Sandy Hook Massacre Victims May Each Get $281,000

27 people, including 20 children, were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre on December 14.

In a proposal presented Thursday night, the families of each of the 26 victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre would receive $281,000 out of the $7.7 million of donated funds to be distributed by the Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation, reports The Courant.

In addition, 12 families of the children who survived the school shooting would each receive $20,000 and two teachers wounded by the gunman, Adam Lanza, would receive $150,000 split between them.

A hearing was held Thursday night by a committee headed by former federal Judge Alan Nevas at the Newtown, Connecticut town hall to discuss the distribution of the funds among the victims of the massacre. The committee plans to have the money distributed to the 40 eligible families by mid-August.

“The money will be out the door to the families by August 15,” Feinberg said. “No amount of money is adequate to deal with these horrors. The money is a pretty poor substitute, but that’s what we have.”

The distribution proposal caused frustration among some of the Newtown residents, who wondered why only $7.7 million was being distributed, and not the entire $11.4 million that was donated in total.

Caryn Kaufman, who works for an organization that is trying to establish a national victims’ relief fund, said all of the money should go to the victims.

“Why isn’t all the money going to all the victims?” Kaufman said. “The intent was to give the money to the victims. We’re starting from a false premise and this process is re-victimizing the victims,”

The Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation Inc. made the decision to split the fund and give $7.7 million to the families and the rest to go towards community purposes. The foundation plans to create a second distribution committee to oversee how the remaining funds will be dispersed.