SoulShine Industries donates caskets for Uvalde
“I’m in," Trey Ganem said. “Whatever is needed, I’m in.”
As soon as Ganem heard about the killing of 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas, he knew his specific skillset could ease some of the suffering of that community. He knew he needed to donate his skills making custom caskets for the deceased, and so he started to work doing exactly that.
“We just stepped out on faith,” he said, adding that when he brought the idea to his wife she was “right there with me.” Neither Trey nor his wife Michelle knew how they were going to pull off such a huge feat in very little time – he needed to deliver caskets on Saturday for funeral services on Sunday – but they knew that they had been called to help, so they prayed together and decided they just needed to have faith it would come together. Altogether, they wound up donating 19 caskets.
“It takes a lot to do 19 caskets,” he said. “And the price, financially, it hit us really hard, but I had just gotten an SBA loan for Covid, and we were using it to stay afloat.”
The money from the loan was “just enough,” he said, to cover the cost of all the caskets. Past that, he was not sure what the future held for his business, but he had faith it would work out. He is quick to point to those who helped them accomplish this.
As the word spread about what he and his crew were doing, people both locally and from across the United States started pitching in in whatever way they could, donating money, sending food, ordering pizza to be delivered while they worked, and more. One company donated their services to get the caskets all the way from Georgia to Trey in enough time to perfect them before delivering them to the families of the victims.
This isn’t the first time Ganem has done a thing like this, or even the first time he has made headlines for donating his skills to those in need. In their 11 years in this business, Soulshine Industries has donated caskets to local families who have lost loved ones, to the victims of the 2017 shooting in Southerland Springs, and to many others both near and far. Not all of them make national news, but each is just as special to him.
“I am so blessed to be able to bless these families,” he said. “And to have a blessing when we drop off the casket. When that family sees that casket and has that casket for the first time, that is, for me, the best part about my business, and that’s what keeps me going. It’s not about all the tragedy, but about how we can represent them and make sure that it’s perfect so we can start that healing process.”
Ganem sees people on one of the worst days of their lives, and his goal is to bring a little bit of relief. “We are here to bring some light into a dark time,” he said. “And that’s what we did.”
Ganem and his crew can be found online at www.soulshineindustries.com