(Trends Wide) — On the day she was murdered, Simone Crawley’s grandmother, Ruth E. Whitfield, was buying seeds for her garden – a labor of love – where she grew sweet peppers and sweet potatoes.

Whitfield, the family matriarch, was one of 10 people killed in a racially motivated mass shooting at a Tops Friendly Markets in east Buffalo, New York, a year ago.

Crawley said Whitfield had always been close to her children and grandchildren, cooking Sunday dinners and inspiring everyone with her strength, grace and genuine love.

For her, the pain of losing her grandmother is still alive.

“It’s been extremely difficult for us,” Crawley said. “We are about to turn one year old, but to our family it doesn’t even seem like six months.”

This Sunday marks the one-year anniversary of the attack on the majority-black east side of Buffalo, when 19-year-old white supremacist Payton Gendron opened fire at Tops supermarket. Family members of the victims, including Crawley, made emotional remarks at Gendron’s sentencing hearing.

“We all know the raw hate and motivations behind your heinous crime, and we are here to tell you that you have failed,” Crawley said, addressing Gendron in court. “We will continue to elevate and be everything you are not, everything you hate and everything you intended to destroy.”

Gendron was sentenced to life in prison in February.

Through it all, the family is resilient and united in the year after the tragedy, Crawley said. And so is the Buffalo community at large.

“The community is stronger”

Although the Buffalo community remains devastated, the city is trying to turn tragedy into triumph, activists say.

The neighborhood has returned to normal and there is constant traffic at the Tops supermarket, which was remodeled with more security features and an improved food offer after the shooting.

There have been forums – one in Whitfield’s honor last month that highlighted white supremacist hate speech, health and wellness and terrorism – community events and food drives that are uniting residents in their pain. The mass shooting exposed inequities in food and economic security, and several organizations have stepped in to help the community, said Buffalo NAACP President the Rev. Mark Blue.

The city is organizing various events for the “Remembrance Weekend of 5/14”, which will include a panel discussion and a commemorative mass. Some residents say they are desperate to find solutions to hate, mental illness and gun control to prevent Mass Shootings from happening again.

Last June, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation that strengthened the state’s gun laws, including a ban on the purchase of semi-automatic rifles by anyone under the age of 21 and a ban on the purchase of bulletproof vests with the exception of people who practice certain professions. Hochul also announced in March that the state would commit $1.4 million to support mental health programs in East Buffalo.

Blue hopes that mental health funding will reach schools so there are more resources to diagnose and treat mental illness at a younger age.

“One year later, our community is stronger, more united and more resilient,” Blue said. “We are working for a positive change and we know that it will not happen overnight.”

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said that while he welcomes the state’s “strong and swift” response, action needs to be taken at the federal level. Since the Buffalo massacre there have been hundreds of mass shootings across the country. So far this year alone, more than 200 have been produced.

“Some federal lawmakers continue to look the other way when innocent Americans are killed in these shootings,” Brown said. “There are more mass shootings than there are days in the year. So this problem is not getting better, it’s getting worse.”

Mark Talley, whose mother Geraldine Talley was killed in the racist massacre, says he will publish a book called “The Day the Devil Came to Buffalo” about his fondest memories of his mother, her anger, shock and pain .

“It’s quite a surreal and uncomfortable experience when you find out that your mother was one of the fatalities and that the shooting didn’t happen because people were playing,” says Talley. “The shooting happened because a racist terrorist wanted to come here and kill black people.”

Talley said he wants the community to focus less on commemorating the attack on each anniversary and more on finding solutions to the poverty that plagues East Buffalo. He also believes that statewide gun control is not enough to stop mass shootings.

“Unless it’s done at the federal level, it really doesn’t make sense,” Talley said. “Someone can go to another state, get guns, and come back.”