This will be the second Christmas Manuel and Patricia Oliver won’t spend with their son Joaquin who was murdered in the Valentine’s Day mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.
Joaquin was among the 17 killed in the worst school shooting in history.
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After their son’s death, Manuel and Patricia Oliver founded the organization Change The Ref to empower young people to make changes through education and activism on a variety of issues, most notably gun violence.
The Olivers are currently baking 1,700 cookies in the shape of a small person that is filled with holes. They say the holes are meant to represent bullet holes and each cookie stands for one of the 1,700 children killed by gun violence every year.
The holiday season message was inspired by a recent NRA social media post showing a picture of Santa Claus reading a Christmas list requesting Ammo.
The caption says “Dear Santa, you give us ammo. We give you cookies. It’s that simple.”
On Tuesday Patricia Oliver says she plans to hand-deliver the baked goods to the NRA office outside of Washington, DC.
“I feel that I’m representing not only Joaquin as a mom of him, but also every single mom. I am the person that represents every single mom that feels like me: Empty, frustrated, with anger about not having our kid with us,” she told The Associated Press.