Michigan Pastor Provides Free Gas To Residents Near Buffalo Mass Shooting

A pastor from Michigan traveled to Buffalo, New York to provide free gas for residents in the neighborhood near Tops supermarket, the site of a mass shooting last month.

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Carlton Lynch is the senior pastor at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church in Benton Harbor. Over the weekend, he made the nearly 500-mile trek to Buffalo, New York, and gave away $10,000 worth of gasoline on Monday.

Pastor Called to Serve

Lynch tells Buffalo TV station WKBW-TV that he felt a calling to help the people who live in the neighborhood near Tops supermarket.

"I couldn't not do anything," said Lynch. "This has become, in a sense, a food desert since the tragedy so I thought about bringing resources to the community."

Volunteers pumped gas and helped drivers navigate gridlock as each car received $40 worth of free gas. Police also helped lead cars into the Mandela Market gas station on Jefferson Avenue, near the site of the mass shooting.

"As you see, it's a little chaotic," Lynch notes in the video below. "But that's just part of it."

 

Community Grateful

Some customers waited for as long as three hours, telling the news station that they were grateful for the Michigan church's generosity. Some recipients said that the gas will enable them to get to upcoming doctor appointments, take their children to school, go to the grocery store, and even drive to job interviews.