Cody Hill was only 11 when he saw the woman shot to death, just a few feet from where he was standing.

Cody, his parents and his brother had flown from Portland to Atlanta for vacation that summer of 1995. It was early on a Saturday morning, and the family was doing some sightseeing at an Atlanta underground mall. "Lot of shops weren't open yet, so we were just wondering around," say Cody.

Cody's dad, Bill, called him over to look in a shop window. "My dad and I saw somebody kind of leaning behind a post. I thought maybe he was playing hide-and-seek with a kid." Moments later Cody was standing in front of a candle shop. "Two workers were just opening it up. One of them saw the guy walking toward her. She screamed, 'Oh my God, no!' He shot her three times. We all started running. We were really, really scared."

In the panic, Cody's father ran the opposite direction from the rest of the family. Cody jumped on a down escalator, then realized his mother, Nancy, was still on the upper level. "I ran up the escalator and tried to find her." It took awhile for the family to find one another. "We just all cried."

Later, when the police talked to Cody, he asked whether the shooter had escaped. "The police told me he had shot himself in the head. They took me back to see it. The bodies were on the ground, covered over."

Ever since, whenever Cody sees a squirt gun shaped like a pistol, or a plastic facsimile of a semiautomatic weapon, "I remember the whole thing, the shooting, the crying. Everything." Even though Cody's now an eighth-grader at Jackson Middle School, he still has flashbacks. After Atlanta, Cody understood his mother a lot better.

"My mom had never let me play with toy guns. She was opposed to the idea of kids shooting other kids and having it be fun." When Cody was little, his mother's rule made him mad. "I thought, 'This is dumb. Everybody else gets to play with toy guns, but I don't.'" But after Atlanta, Cody was opposed to gunplay. In fact, Cody decided he wanted to educate other kids about the dangers of guns. "I want our future to be bright. I don't want America to go downhill, with this attitude, 'Guns are fun so let's go shoot people.'"

So when Cody heard of Ceasefire Oregon's gun turn-in program, in which adults who turn in real weapons get vouchers for merchandise and event tickets, he came up with a great idea: There should be a toy gun turn-in for kids.

A friend of Cody's mom works for the Northeast Community Development Corp. Cody talked to the director, and the corporation agreed to sponsor his event. Cody wanted to hold the toy gun turn-in May 9, the same day as the adult gun turn-in. "That way it can be a whole gun awareness day. For kids as well as adults."

Cody envisioned an event with lots of activities - sports, games, entertainment. "I want it to be a really positive experience for kids, so they'll realize there are things you can do that are more fun than playing with guns." But Cody is just a kid; his voice hasn't even changed yet. How could a kid raise $10,000 and coordinate an event this ambitious? He got to work.

Cody contacted the Trail Blazers, who arranged for space in Memorial Coliseum and got the city fee waived. "Then I talked to this other company - that doesn't want their name used at this point - that agreed to pay the room rental of $800. They also are willing to print posters and other stuff." He got a sound studio to agree to record public service announcements. Some toy stores donated a toy or two.

Still, Cody had to raise the $10,000 for gift certificates. For four weeks he's held and early morning doughnut sale at his school. That brought in $218. But Cody knows doughnuts won't finance this project. So for weeks he's used all his spare time to call businesses and ask for donations.

"Office Automation has said they'll make a donation," he says. "But I don't know how much."

But nobody else has given. "Most everybody says it sounds like a really good project, but they're sorry, they won't donate. I think it might be because I'm a kid."

As May 9 draws closer, Cody isn't sleeping well. "I really, really want to do this project, and I'm really afraid I'm just not going to get the funding."

But the company that agreed to pay the room rental told Cody that if he doesn't raise $5,000 in the next two weeks, he'll have to cancel the event. "I thought the shooting in Arkansas would bring this to everybody's attention. I thought people would be encouraged that kids are out there working to make our world a better place. I thought people would say, "We don't have a lot, but I might be able to come up with at least something.' But it hasn't happened. Yet."

The Oregonian
Margie Boule

Article 2 - Thanks to Cody, toy gun exchange is right on target