Updated Funeral Information for Salim

Funeral arrangements for Salim Fort have been finalized. The wake is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 6, from 3-8 p.m., at Solimine Funeral Home, 67 Ocean St. Please note that the location is not the one in Wyoma square. The funeral service is set for Saturday, Aug. 7, at 10 a.m., at the Zion Baptist Church on Adams Street Extension, followed by burial at Pine Grove Cemetery.

Friends and relatives are welcome to gather after the funeral at Classical High School for a very brief time.

The Salim Fort Memorial Fund was established Thursday. Donations can be sent to Solomine Funeral Home at 426 Broadway, Lynn, MA, 01904 

The owner of X-Treme Silkscreen & Design on Mt. Vernon Street created a custom T-shirt bearing Salim’s Fort’s picture and a message that he rest in peace. The shirts are on sale in the main office for 10.00 and all proceeds will go towards the fund.

If you would like to bring a desert or beverage to the gathering at Classical please bring it in by Friday morning so we may assist the family with the set up.

Gene Constantino, Principal

Lynn Classical High School

235 O'Callaghan Way

Lynn, Massachusetts 01905

 

Lynn family needs funds for drowning victim's funeral

By David Liscio/The Daily Item                               

Jeff Fiore, left, and Tino Oliva print memorial T-shirts Thursday to help pay for drowning victim Salim Fort’s funeral expenses at X-Treme Silkscreen & Design in Lynn. (Item Photo / Owen O'Rourke)

LYNN - If sales of a custom T-shirt continue at its current pace the family of Salim Fort will have a large chunk of the cost of burying their son covered.

To help the family, the owners of X-Treme Silkscreen & Design on Mt. Vernon Street created a custom T-shirt bearing Fort’s picture and a message that he rest in peace.

“We brought about 30 of them to the boy’s house. They went right away so we cranked out about 130, intending to sell them for $10 apiece. Those are all gone, too, so now we’re printing 150 more,” X-Treme owner Ron Caliri said Thursday, noting he hopes to raise about $2,500 for the Fort family.

Fort was the 15-year-old Lynn Classical High School student who drowned when he attempted to swim across Breeds Pond on Tuesday afternoon. Temperatures soared into the 90s and many youth sought relief in the cool water.

“I felt so bad that I had to do something,” Caliri said. “My son is going to swim at the Prep next year. Sometimes he swims out to the Marblehead islands. He has actually saved a couple of his friends.”

Salim lived at 11 Nelson St. with his parents, Astrel K. Fort and Cynthia (Vonleh) Fort, and two brothers — Astrel, a sophomore at Classical High School, and Samuel, a fifth-grader at Shoemaker Elementary School.

Although Solimine Landergan and Richardson Funeral Home will waive all costs except for casket and cemetery plot, the Fort family still face $5,000 to $6,000 in expenses, according to David Solimine Sr.

The Salim Fort Memorial Fund was established Thursday to help defray the costs. Donations can be sent to 426 Broadway, Lynn, MA, 01904.

The wake and funeral have been delayed in order to give relatives living in Haiti and Liberia opportunity to make travel arrangements.

Funeral arrangements were still in progress Thursday. A wake was tentatively scheduled for Friday, Aug. 6, from 3-8 p.m., at Solimine, 67 Ocean St. The funeral service was set for Saturday, Aug. 7, at 10 a.m., at the Zion Baptist Church on Adams Street Extension, followed by burial at Pine Grove Cemetery.

Friends and relatives are welcome to gather after the funeral at Classical High School.

Gene Constantino, Classical High principal, described Fort as friendly, outgoing, scholastic and a promising athlete. “I don’t often get to know a lot of freshmen but Salim was different. He was so personable. It’s such a shame. He was a good kid and people knew he was going to be a great athlete. He would have gotten a scholarship,” he said. “I visited the family and it is a very tough time for them, but they are appreciative of everything the community has done.”

Constantino said the T-shirts will be on sale at the high school Friday from 8 a.m. to noon. “The word is already spreading on Facebook,” he said. “All the money will go to the family for funeral expenses.”

 

 

Salim Fort Dies in Drowning Incident

(Scroll down for more articles)

 


Salim Fort

Classical student, 16, drowns in Lynn's Breeds Pond                              
 

By Robin Kaminski/The Daily Item

 

LYNN - A 16-year-old Classical High student drowned in the waters of Breeds Pond around 6 p.m. Tuesday, after a group of his friends desperately tried to save him.

Friends say Salim Fort was swimming in the pond, which is accessible from a short trek into the woods off of Glen Avenue, in an attempt to beat the heat when he began to flounder.

At approximately 6:30 p.m., Fort was pulled from the water by Lynn firefighters and rushed to a waiting ambulance as his friends watched, hysterically crying.

“He said to me, ‘Miguel, I can’t go anymore,’ ” Miguel Peguero said in between tears. “He (Fort) told me that he just learned how to swim and we saw him go down, but he was too heavy to pick up. He was under water for a good 10 minutes.”

Peguero, 16, said he, Fort and a handful of other teens had decided to go swimming in the pond around 5 p.m., and had swam halfway across when Fort began to yell that he was in trouble.

“We were just chilling like normal kids do (on a hot day),” Peguero said while staring at the pond. “I’ve known him since the seventh grade.”

Photo

Miguel Peguero, 16, rests his hand on his head in the aftermath

of his friend’s drowning in Breeds Pond in Lynn Tuesday. (Item Photo / Reba M. Saldanha)


Lynn police Lt. David Brown said the department received several calls at approximately 6:11 p.m., that a male went under water and quickly responded to the scene along with the Lynn Fire Department.

“Lynn Fire medics and Atlantic Ambulance personnel provided CPR and transported the victim to Union Hospital,” he said.

News of Fort’s death sent a shockwave through the Classical High community, prompting school officials to open the building for grief counseling.

Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy, along with Principal Gene Constantino and the school’s ninth grade guidance counselor were on hand to console students. The school will remain open today for counseling.

“It’s just a terrible accident and seems like the kids were just enjoying the day,” Kennedy said. “It’s a sad loss of life.”

While Brown said swimming in the pond is illegal, Kennedy said the spot is one where kids have gathered for decades to cool off in the summer months.

Fort participated in basketball and football during his short-lived school career. Several of his coaches were contacted Tuesday night, but we The incident remains under investigation.

 

Grief, tears overwhelm Lynn drowning victim Fort’s peers

By Thor Jourgensen, Laura Paine and Debra Glidden/The Daily Item

LYNN - Classical High School Principal Gene Constantino said Salim Fort, a 15-year-old student who died Tuesday night, “transcended all facets” of the school.

Students cried and talked in low tones as they stood close to one another Wednesday, gathering to remember Fort, a Nelson Street resident who drowned in Breeds Pond despite friends’ efforts to save him.

Teenagers on Tuesday gathered along the pond’s shoreline near Glen Avenue, at Union Hospital where Fort was transported after firefighters pulled him from the pond, and at Classical.

“We had over 300 kids in the cafeteria grieving heavily,” said Constantino.

That scene was repeated mid-day Wednesday as students listened to Constantino urge them to support each other, speak with counselors and represent Classical with dignity and respect once funeral arrangements for Fort are complete.

Classical football players wore ties to practice Wednesday to mirror the pride Constantino said Fort took in adhering to game day dress code shirt and tie requirements.

“He was always so proud to be a student athlete,” Constantino said, adding, “He transcended all facets of the school. He touched everyone in all four grades.”

Fort would have been a Classical 10th-grader this year along with his brother, Astrel.

Friends and classmates poured out their affection and memories of him with inscriptions left on poster boards tacked onto the cafeteria’s walls.

They also left messages on Facebook, including one posted by Kaisha Tejada that read, “I’ve been crying for hours.”

Classical sophomore Corey Lazurek looked forward to seeing Fort once the school year started. They last spoke when school ended for the summer in June.

“He was looking forward to football. He loved football and he really had it going for him. He was one of the most respectful kids I ever met,” Lazurek said.

Constantino promised students following Wednesday’s auditorium assembly that he would keep them informed about the Fort family’s plans for funeral arrangements. He also said school administrators will work with students to conceive an appropriate tribute to Fort.

“He had so much promise in so many ways,” he said.

Breeds Pond is easily reached from Glen Avenue by a hike up a short embankment then a scramble over boulders down to the shoreline bordered by a path and thick woods. A blue “No Swimming” sign is affixed to a tree next to the embankment. Glen resident Denise Lavargna said she worries about teens swimming in Breeds and calls police when they park on Glen Avenue and head for the pond.

She said the embankment attracts teenagers who congregate and drink, leaving beer cans littering the rocks or tossed onto front lawns.

“If I call police they are here immediately. They announce on their public address speakers they plan to tow parked cars and that draws kids out of the woods,” Lavargna said.

 

Reprinted from The Boston Globe:
 

School mourns student’s death

Classmates in Lynn remember drowning victim

By Alex Katz, Globe Correspondent  |  July 29, 2010

LYNN — Salim Fort was an outstanding athlete and a gentleman, friends said. The kind of guy who could make the varsity football team as a freshman. The kind of guy who could make everyone in the Lynn Classical High School cafeteria laugh.

The cafeteria was mostly quiet yesterday. Only the sporadic cries of grieving students pierced the silence. They had gathered to mourn the friend they will never again see. Fort, 15, drowned in the waters of Breeds Pond Tuesday evening.

“I just want to wake up from this nightmare,’’ said Danielle Moran, 15, a rising sophomore at the high school. “It’s not fair.’’

Around 300 students filled the cafeteria and hallways of the school’s tan brick building as they sought solace in each other’s company. Some sat at foldable lunch tables with their heads in their hands, tears running down their cheeks. Others wrote farewell messages on large sheets of paper hanging on the wall.

“Gone but not forgotten,’’ one note read. “I’m going to miss that smile,’’ said another.

If there was one thing everyone remembered about Fort, it was his smile.

“He’s the only kid I know who could get crushed on the field and still have that big goofy grin on his face,’’ said John Finnigan, 16, a rising junior on the Classical football team who played with Fort last season. Along with his teammates, he wore a shirt and tie yesterday to honor Fort’s memory.

Finnigan was walking down Lynnfield Street Tuesday when he heard the chopping sound of helicopters overhead and the wailing sirens of fire trucks racing past. Soon afterward, he received a friend’s text message telling him Fort had died.

It still has not hit him.

“I keep expecting him to walk through that door laughing,’’ Finnigan said.

Shaday Imadiyi, 16, a student at Lynn English High School, first met Fort while he was playing basketball, another sport he excelled in, she said. On Tuesday night, her Facebook inbox was inundated with messages from people wishing Fort a speedy recovery, thinking he was merely injured at the pond, she said.

Soon enough, the messages turned into condolences, many of them reading: “Rest in peace.’’

Fort had drowned while swimming with friends at the local pond that was off-limits but still a popular hangout for students. They tried to save him.

“He died too young,’’ said Virginia Ogbeiwi, 17, who was sitting next to Imadiyi at a table on which Fort’s name had been inscribed with a heart. “He was really going somewhere and, in a matter of minutes, he was gone.’’

Nearby was Brandon Pinnock, 15, a sophomore whose weeping moans resonated in the room. “I owe him so much,’’ Pinnock cried out as he held hands with Vanessa March, 16, who, like many yesterday, wore sunglasses in the brightly lit cafeteria to hide her watery eyes.

“They’re all experiencing grief in different ways,’’ said Gene Constantino, Classical’s principal. “It’s a blow to everybody.’’

Following a short assembly, students began to leave the building around 2 p.m. As students gathered outside under the bright summer sun, some hugged, many cried, and all had Fort on their mind. “He was just an incredible role model,’’ said Constantino. “The kind of guy who would have grown up to be a leader at this school.’’