The loss of 19-year-old assistant teacher Ethan Holder left an absence in the halls of P.S. 203, and in the hearts of his loved ones.  

“There’s no words to explain this big loss,” said Holder’s mother. "Trying to cope." 

Holder was fatally shot in the head near P.S. 203 last Tuesday in what investigators currently describe as a targeted attack. Holder’s parents say that he was declared brain dead the next day.  

Once his parents learned of the news, Holder’s father says the family made a decision to donate his son’s organs. 

“We understood that he may not wake up again and we thought about all the things he wanted to do,” said his father. “This is a way to ensure, keep hope, that he’s going to be alive, as well as contribute the way he’d want to.” 

Live On New York helped to facilitate the donation and said Holder’s kidney and left lung went to three New Yorkers in their 50s and 60s. His liver, pancreas and right lung went to three others in dire need outside of New York state. 

Holder’s family is now setting up a foundation named ‘The Music of Ethan’s Heart’.