Homicide victim remembered as youth advocate
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This article was published 20/12/2018 (2523 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A crowdfunding campaign has been launched in memory of Ricardo Hibi, the city’s 21st homicide victim of the year. He was known in the North End for his work as a foster parent and advocate for at-risk youth.
Police found Hibi unconscious and suffering stab wounds at a group home he operated on McGee Street on Dec. 17. He was taken to hospital in critical condition where he later died. He leaves behind a fiancée and six-year-old son.
Agnieszka Piotrowski became friends with Hibi while attending West Kildonan Collegiate.
“We just became the best of friends over the years and he was the godfather to my first daughter, I’m the godmother to his son,” she said.
On Thursday, Piotrowski launched a GoFundMe campaign to finish a project Hibi had been working on before he was killed — opening a resource centre for youth at 698 Selkirk Ave. The campaign was just $900 short of its $5,000 goal four hours after it was posted online.
“I wasn’t expecting to have such a large response so early but it’s just been amazing the support that everyone’s been giving,” she said. “I think it just shows that the community recognizes that it shows how hard he’s been working with these at-risk youth.
“It’s just so unfortunate that someone with such a big heart who was giving back to the community, that was helping these kids, would just be taken so senselessly.”
All the proceeds from the fundraiser will go to directly to the resource centre to help finish renovations, purchase educational materials and fill Christmas hampers Hibi had been making for the families he worked with.
“He first and foremost wanted to get the hampers done for the families for Christmas so they could at least have some perishable items, but unfortunately he never got to finish that,” Piotrowski said.
Hibi’s fiancée, Candace Woloshyn, will take over the operation of the resource centre, according to the fundraising site.
This week, friends, family and community members came together for a spirit fire in Hibi’s memory at 698 Selkirk Ave. The fire has been burning 24 hours a day to allow Hibi’s “spirit to cross over,” Piotrowski said.
“It’s allowed anybody to just come and visit him and speak a few words to him,” she said.
“He was such a wonderful person, he had his own trials and tribulations from early adolesence to adulthood and no matter what he went through or what was thrown his way, he never once complained .
“What all of us have been reminiscing about is just how powerful of a person he was that he never allowed anything to stop him.”
On Wednesday, police identified 21-year-old Kane Ashley Antonio Moar as the suspect in Hibi’s killing. The police are asking for the public’s help in locating Moar, who is described as approximately 6-0 and 190lbs.