COLORADO SPRINGS — Raymond Green Vance would have turned 23 on January 21st. His family and friends decided they wanted to spend the day in a way he would have wanted.
"We wanted to do something that reflected Raymond and giving is what he did. Now we can do it in his name," said Ron Bell, Raymond's grandfather.
The group gathered at Club Q in order to clean the memorial. In temperatures as cold as 25 degrees, everyone picked up a trash bag and started to remove dead flowers from all of the victims.
After they had cleaned everything, they set out new flowers across the memorial.
"It's been so nice to get to meet people. And they're so nice. They understand what we're going through because they also went through the same thing. And somehow, we became a family," said Esthela Bell, Raymond's grandmother. "Thank you, Raymond," she shouted towards the sky.
Raymond's family, along with others within the Club Q community, helped bring flowers, balloons, food, and sang happy birthday to Raymond.
His Grandparents say that even now, Raymond isn't done teaching them new things. They still see him every time the sun comes out.
"Because of Raymond, we learned that a lot of people are just people that want to be together, we want to know each other, we want to protect each other," they said.
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