East St. Louis community lays 3-year-old shooting victim to rest

About 150 people, most wearing pink and purple and all with heavy hearts, assembled Calvary Church in Cahokia on Friday to say goodbye to Calyia Elizabeth Stringer, the 3-year-old girl struck by a stray bullet in the Roosevelt Homes in East St. Louis.

The pulpit of the church at 429 Range Lane was decorated with purple, yellow, and white flowers, along with two purple unicorn balloons, one on each side of a small pink casket, also decorated with the unicorn theme, one of Calyia’s favorite cartoons.

The congregation was somber as Pastor Larita Rice-Barnes mentioned that the meaning of Calyia’s name means “gift.” In her short time, the pastor said, she was not just a gift to Claudia Rowling and Curtis Stringer, Calyia’s mother and father, but also to complete strangers as an organ donor.

Calyia’s left kidney was given to a 40-year-old woman and her right kidney to a 40-year-old man, and her liver to 2-year-old female, all in Missouri. Calyia’s heart was a perfect match to a 4-year-old female in Pennsylvania, Rice-Barnes told the congregation.

As family members stepped up to say their final goodbyes and to share special memories, East St. Louis Mayor Robert Eastern III delivered a message of encouragement and love to the family and to end a pattern of violence in the city.

Eastern begged those congregated to “stop the senseless violence” in East St. Louis.

“... East St. Louis, let’s be better than this,” he said. “We are the city of champions, so let’s act like it.”

Eastern delivered a similar eulogy just weeks earlier when five children lost their lives in an apartment fire.

“It is important for me to be here today because I too have been in this situation. I want them to know that we are a family, East St. Louis is a family. I want the family to know that I am a resource, that I am here and my door is open whenever they need me.”

This story was originally published September 17, 2021 at 6:31 PM.