{"id":260498,"date":"2025-07-13T02:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T02:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/260498\/"},"modified":"2025-07-13T02:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T02:49:10","slug":"london-holds-candlelight-vigil-to-remember-lives-lost-in-tornado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/260498\/","title":{"rendered":"London holds candlelight vigil to remember lives lost in tornado"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LONDON, Ky. (WKYT) &#8211; It\u2019s a night of banding together as a community and a night of remembrance. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wkyt.com\/2025\/05\/17\/tornado-devastates-southern-kentucky\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wkyt.com\/2025\/05\/17\/tornado-devastates-southern-kentucky\/\">May 16 deadly tornado<\/a> claimed the lives of close to 20 people. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIt\u2019s like a gut punch every time and just the shock has not wore off,\u201d Michelle Baker, President of London KY Strong says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">For Baker and her family, loss is personal. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">She says her first cousin, Lisa Fortney was like a sister to her. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cShe loved her daughter more than anything in the world. She was just a fun loving person, a hard worker, she was just fun to be around, and really, she was part of the glue for our whole family,\u201d Baker says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Baker started London KY Strong alongside her sister, Chasity Whited and her daughter, Emily Wagers. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">After Baker met other survivors who lost their loved ones, she says the driving force became remembering all.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The main event is a candlelit walk to remember lives lost. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI guess it\u2019s one of those things that I\u2019m glad that they don\u2019t have to go through it alone,\u201d Baker says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe have had so many people reach out and help and there has been other organizations in different areas, we [didn\u2019t] have one specifically for this area,\u201d Whited says, who is also the London KY Strong secretary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Now, London Kentucky Strong has created a storm fund for future disasters. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Proceeds from food trucks, a dunk tank, face paint, raffle tickets, and a silent auction at the event will go towards the fund. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">You can donate to the storm fund on Venmo: @londonkystrong<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">More information on the organization can be found on their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61577009724576\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61577009724576\">Facebook page.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">London KY Strong will now host a 5K Run on the anniversary of the tornado each year, starting on May 16, 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WKYT. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON, Ky. (WKYT) &#8211; It\u2019s a night of banding together as a community and a night of remembrance.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,99784,99782,99783,393,4884,40172,99781,257,99779,99778,99780,50155,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-260498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-candlelight-vigil","10":"tag-chasity-whited","11":"tag-emily-wagers","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-laurel-county","15":"tag-lisa-fortney","16":"tag-london","17":"tag-london-kentucky-strong","18":"tag-london-ky","19":"tag-london-ky-strong","20":"tag-tornado","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114843652138372997","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}