In an effort to help recover from the mass shootings over the weekend, an 11-year-old boy in El Paso has created a new challenge in an effort to help people heal.

The challenge is called the #ElPasoChallenge and was created by sixth-grade student Ruben Martinez as a means to help himself and the city recover from the Walmart shooting spree on Saturday. Martinez started by passing out flyers and posters before posting the challenge on Facebook to further spread the message of his challenge.

Under the #ElPasoChallenge, Martinez has challenged the people of El Paso to do 22 good deeds for others in the city. He asks for 22 as a way of honoring the 22 victims gunned down in the shooting spree.

Some of the examples he provides include paying for someone’s meal, donating to another family or mowing someone else’s lawn.

“He was having some trouble dealing with what happened,” Martinez’s mother, Rose Gandarilla, told CNN. “I explained to him that we could not live in fear and that people in our community are caring and loving. I told him to try and think of something he could do to make El Paso a little better.”

After talking with his mother, Martinez came up with the challenge Sunday night and immediately went out to do the first good deed.

“Last night, he agreed to go out to do his first act of kindness,” Gandarilla said. “He chose to go deliver dinner to our first responders.”

Since then, the pair have visited stores and businesses all over El Paso in an effort to spread the word on Martinez’s challenge. Gandarilla also said that her son has been doing much better since starting and is hopeful about her son’s efforts to help make the world “a better place with all these random acts of kindness.”

Tears at El Paso
Members of the Medina family react beside a makeshift memorial outside the Cielo Vista Mall Wal-Mart (background) where a shooting left 20 people dead in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, 2019. MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
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