KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Bills Mafia, a fan group for the Buffalo Bills, has become as famous for its generosity as its wild tailgate antics.
So it’s no surprise that the co-founder of Bills Mafia, Del Reid, lent his influence to support a campaign to raise money for Children’s Mercy Hospital in the wake of the deadly mass shooting that occurred Wednesday shortly after a rally to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs’ latest Super Bowl win at Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri.
“It would break my heart for Buffalo to finally have a championship parade and for something like that to happen,” he said Friday via Zoom with KSHB 41. “It breaks my heart that it happened to Chiefs fans ... for something that is supposed to be — like you mentioned a moment ago — a communal celebration, for it to end like that. It just — it sucks. I wish I had a better way to articulate it, but it just sucks for there to be a loss of life and for people — children — to be injured.”
Lisa Lopez-Galvan was killed and 22 other people were wounded in the shooting, including nine children who were taken to Children’s Mercy Hospital with gunshot wounds.
Two juveniles, who were arrested after the violence, were charged earlier Friday with crimes related to weapons offenses and resisting arrest but more charges are expected as the investigation continues.
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Of course, this isn’t the first time Chiefs and Bills fans have supported one another through charitable donations.
After an incredible AFC Divisional overtime game two years ago, Chiefs Kingdom donated in droves to Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, a pediatric hospital Bills quarterback Josh Allen has supported.
Bills Mafia had previously supported then-Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu’s foundation and other causes through the years.
“At the end of the day, we're all humans, right?” Reid said. “We're all in this thing called life together. If somebody's hurting, just because they cheer for the wrong team, you still want to help however you can.”
Reid said the tragedy hits home especially hard for Bills fans after the Tops Friendly Markets shooting in May 2022, a mass murder at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo that left 10 people dead and three more injured.
That incident took place on an otherwise unremarkable day and rocked Buffalo, Reid said, so he can only imagine the horror of a similarly violent incident at a gathering of hundreds of thousands of people.
“When something like this happens, the first thing you think of is how can I help? Or what can I do to assist the people in this situation?” he said.
Messages from people wanting advice on how Bills Mafia could support Kansas City and suffering Chiefs fans started pouting in immediately.
“I never want to rush into something like this and say, 'This is what we're doing,'” Reid said. “You want to wait and see what people on the ground there, what they're suggesting.”
A fellow fan he’s become familiar with in recent years — Brett Fitzgerald, who runs the Chiefs Kingdom Memes sites on social media — suggested that fans donate $22 to Children’s Mercy Hospital for the number of known shooting victims at the time.
Reid — whose following on X, formerly known as Twitter, alone is more than 83,000 people — decided to amplify the message.
“I saw that and immediately followed his lead,” he said. “I just tried to put it on blast to my Twitter followers. Some people had already jumped on it, so this is not something that I created on my end here in Buffalo. But I've got a little bit of a social media megaphone ... so as soon as I saw that I wanted to follow his lead and help out however we can.”
The Chiefs and Bills have met three times in the postseason in recent years with Patrick Mahomes leading Kansas City to victory all three times, including the first true road playoff game of his career Jan. 21 in another Divisional Round matchup.
Despite that heartbreaking history, at least from Bills Mafia’s perspective, supporting Kansas City in its time of need was a no-brainer.
“It's an honor to be able to do it,” Reid said. “It sucks that there's a reason that we have to do it. But anytime we can show love and support and let people know that are hurting that there's people on the other side of the country that care about them, we’ve got to take that opportunity.”
Within the first 48 hours after the shooting, Children’s Mercy had received nearly $75,000, including 274 donations of $22 and 338 donations of $17 — a familiar Bills Mafia donation as it signifies Allen’s jersey number.
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