First permanent national memorial for COVID victims holds NJ holiday event

⚫ A COVID memorial is hosting a holiday event this weekend

⚫ Families can light candles and put ornaments on trees in memory of loved ones

⚫ This became the first permanent memorial to COVID victims in the U.S.

WALL — Rami’s Heart National COVID Memorial will host its 3rd Annual Holiday Event on Saturday to help put fellow COVID-19 grievers into the spirit of the holidays, all while remembering and honoring their loved ones.

The Event

The free social event will be at IBEW Local 400, 3301 Route 138 in Wall Township from 4 to 7 p.m.

Everything has been donated including all the food and the gifts.

Food will be served to families and children who lost loved ones during the pandemic. There will also be vendors and crafters on hand so people can get a jump-start on their holiday shopping.

“What’s really cool about our vendors is about 70% of them were also grievers who have also turned their grief into a purpose. For a lot of them, their brands began in honor of the loved one they lost,” said Rima Samman Whitaker, co-founder of Rami’s Heart National COVID Memorial at Allaire Community Farm in Wall.

Santa Claus will also be present to provide a gift to all the boys and girls who lost a parent to COVID-19, she said.

Grievers will also be lighting a candle in memory of whom they lost to show that their light lives on. “It’s kind of like a symbolic thing that their legacy is still with us,” Samman Whitaker said.

Holiday trees will also be present for grievers to hang an ornament in honor of a loved one, Samman Whitaker added.

There will be two trees. One tree will host all the ornaments that were received the year before. The other tree will be completely bare at the start of the event, allowing for families to hang up their own ornament, she said.

Who is Rami?

The Rami’s Heart National COVID Memorial was founded three years ago in honor of Rami Samman, Rima’s brother, who died on May 10, 2020, from COVID-19 during the peak of the pandemic, when about 80,000 lives were lost. He was 40 years old.

Rami’s death came at a point when the state, as well as the country, was on lockdown. That meant no funeral services with more than 8 people in attendance were allowed in New Jersey.

Several months later, the memorial initially started as an impromptu one on the beaches of Belmar, Samman Whitaker said.

“But it was one of those things that hit social media and grew viral. Within 45 days, we had hundreds of stones in the memorial. It became evident that we needed to make it permanent. That’s how we found our home at Allaire Community Farm,” she said.

This makeshift memorial became the first permanent national COVID memorial in the U.S.

Rami, not only left behind his loving family but was also engaged to be married. He was the light of everyone’s lives, not only with his family and friends but with strangers, too.

“Rami was a very vibrant person. He was very giving. I remember when he died, a co-worker said he was somebody who never knew a stranger. I think there’s no better way to describe that. My brother was the type of person that would help an elderly person load their groceries in their car at the store even though he didn’t know them,” Samman Whitaker said.

If someone’s child was crying at the store, Rami would try to make that child smile, even though he may not have known them. He was just very giving and very caring, she tearfully added.

Going Forward

In the past three years of the memorial’s existence, Samman Whitaker said she’s come to learn so much about families who have gone through similar losses.

These families didn’t just lose a loved one, but they lost a lot whether it’s financially and emotionally, as well. It’s caused instability in families, especially for children who lost a parent. Their lives have gone from a two-parent household to a one-parent household.

One parent is taking on both roles. The finances are now cut in half which takes away from children being able to take part in things like extracurricular activities.

“One of the things we’d like to focus on in the future is creating possibly hardship scholarships or maybe even educational scholarships for these children and these families who are suffering,” Samman Whitaker said.

Members of the memorial also include widowers who lost their spouses during the pandemic. For the majority of them, their spouse was the breadwinner and now the spouse is left taking on the extra expenses as well.

“We would really love to get in a position where we can provide support on a financial level, and not just on the emotional level for these families,” she said.

For more information on the memorial and the free holiday event, please visit here.

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