Shalldon Samuda had big plans for his 16th birthday and the year to come.
He wanted to throw a party and was excited about learning how to drive and eager to get his license, shared his mother Ruthlyne Hoyte.
But Shalldon will never be able to celebrate those milestones.
In the early morning hours of Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022, the 15-year-old boy was shot inside his North York home, near Keele Street and Shephard Avenue West. He was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, but died there a few hours later.
Now, Shalldon’s friends and loved ones along with people from the Downsview community are set to come together at Brookwell Park this afternoon to celebrate what would have been his 16th birthday.
“Shalldon had so many plans for his life, but his life was cut too short by a senseless act of violence,” Hoyte said during an interview with CP24.com earlier this week. “We will never forget him.”
Today’s birthday celebration is being organized by a number of Shalldon’s friends and family members, including his first-ever basketball coach Collin Charles.
Charles met Shalldon when he was just in kindergarten.
The last time Charles had coached him was just before the pandemic when Shalldon was on a team of Grade 7 boys. Many of those players will be coming out Sunday to play in a small tournament in honour of their slain teammate, he said.
“We’re doing to do what Shalldon would have wanted us to do: play basketball. … We’re going to play basketball and we’re going to have fun,” Charles said.
The basketball tournament on Sunday is just one of several ways that Shalldon’s friends and family want to pay tribute, though.
One of Shalldon’s biggest dreams was to have his own clothing line and Jane-Finch community leader Chris Blackwood is determined to help make that happen.
For the last several months, Blackwood, who is the executive director of a non-profit organization called Neighbourhoods Without Borders and is also helping organize Sunday’s event, has been working closely with Shalldon’s older brother Kasman and a few of his friends to develop a streetwear collection called X BANZZ. Some of those pieces will be available for sale on Sunday.
Shalldon had written about his dream to launch X BANZZ, which he called an “affordable and easy to find” clothing line with “good quality items,” in an essay he’d penned prior to the pandemic about what he wanted to be when he grows up.
Blackwood runs a clothing line called Grand Slammer with his brother and had met Shalldon at a local barber shop a few years ago. He only learned after Shalldon’s murder that the teen saw him as an inspiration.
“Hopefully we can keep this clothing line going so we can motivate everybody that’s grieving,” he shared.
“It’s the least I can do.”
On Sunday morning before the party, Shalldon’s mother along with his siblings and other family members will be paying a visit to his grave for his 16th birthday.
Hoyte, a long-time local educational assistant, said it hasn’t been an easy time for the family since Shalldon’s loss, especially for his 12-year-old and 16-year-old brothers.
“Our family dynamic has completely changed. My family’s peace has been shattered. How can we make sense of this senseless loss,” she said.
