Michelle Cummings was honored at the Motherhood of Brotherhood tailgate for Navy football’s first game against Marshall University on Saturday.
This tailgate would have been Michelle’s first event a part of Motherhood of Brotherhood, which is a tight-knit group of Naval Academy football moms.
Leonard “Truck” Cummings, her husband, spoke in front of a crowd of about 100 people and thanked everyone that stepped up to help him after Michelle was shot by a stray bullet when they were in Annapolis dropping off their son, Leonard Cummings III, at the Naval Academy for Induction Day, which begins a plebe’s summer before their first year.
“We been through it and we aren’t done going through it and this is a very joyful and painful situation,” Cummings said. “This is what we do, we love people, we celebrate people and we help people and we don’t stop doing that as a family.”
Cummings ended his speech by saying “let’s get on with the celebration, so I can wipe my tears.”
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Mayor Gavin Buckley said he has learned a lot about Michelle over the months since Michelle was killed June 29.
“She lived a life full of love and a love for her family, sports and supporting her children’s dreams,” he said. “This was a senseless tragedy and it is still so fresh and painful.”
Buckley said everyone at the ceremony has the job of keeping Michelle’s spirit alive and keeping her memory in our hearts and mind.
The Morning Sun
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, U.S. Representative for Texas’s 18th congressional district, honored the family with a citation. Lee and many others traveled from Louisiana and Texas to be at the ceremony.
“The best of her life, Trey and Jordan, still live with a bounty of her love and her training and her investment in their DNA,” Lee said of Michelle’s children. “We are here for a celebration and to acknowledge Michelle’s life.”
Michelle Pittman, president of Motherhood of Brotherhood, said the organization was recently designated as a 501(3c) nonprofit. They will be creating the “Michelle Jordan Cummings memorial fund” which will focus on awarding scholarships to students in underprivileged communities in the U.S.
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The organization also honored Michelle Cummings with two tents with her name on them and a trailer with a painting of her on it.
Cummings was not the intended target of the shooting that killed her but was struck when a bullet passed over a brick wall at the edge of the property of a West Street hotel, police said. Annapolis resident Angelo Reno Harrod was charged with murder for the shooting on July 14. He was wanted by police after they say he cut off an ankle bracelet and fled home confinement in May.
For more information on the Michelle Jordan Cummings memorial fund, go to Motherhoodofthebrotherhood.org.