El Paso boy inspires others in wake of tragedy with #ElPasoChallenge

It started as a way to cope.

Sixth-grader Ruben Martinez was devastated after the El Paso mass shooting.

His mother, Rosa Gandarilla, had an idea to help.

“After a lot of discussion I said, ‘Why don’t you go think of something that you can do to show everybody that El Paso’s good,'” she said.

So Ruben got a pen and a notebook. At the top he wrote “#ElPasoChallenge.”

“You can help someone in need when they’re feeling stressed out,” he said.

The goal is to help El Paso smile, days after one of the darkest moments in the city’s history. Ruben is challenging people to do a good deed in honor of the 22 people who lost their lives.

“All of the people from Twitter and Facebook are like — they chatted and they wanted — they all wanted to do it,” he said.

Gandarilla posted a picture of Ruben and his notebook. The post quickly went viral.

My 11 year old came to me with an idea. #elpasoCHALLENGE He challenges ALL El Pasoans to commit 20 Random Acts of Kindness. One for every person that was killed in our city’s mass shooting. Let’s get this done El Paso. @abc7breaking @kels1142 @YsletaISD @EPPOLICE @elpasoisd pic.twitter.com/pvy5Q9G4f6

— Rose (@rgandarilla99) August 5, 2019

“El Pasoans are loving, caring and are willing to do anything to help out,” Ruben said. “We can make the world a better place.”