When 29-year-old Shay Khatiri woke up on Saturday morning, his Jewish friend whose couch he was staying on told him about the deadly shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh that left 11 people dead and injured six more.
Khatiri wanted to help.
"I thought I would donate a little money, which is not going to make any real change to help them — not that they could ever recover from this tragedy — but to help them a little bit," he told INSIDER.
Since he had set up GoFundMe pages before, Khatiri decided to make one for the victims of the shooting so his donation could perhaps spur others.
By 10 p.m. ET on Saturday — just nine hours after he posted it — the page had raised over $140,000, from 2,735 donations.
Khatiri has now raised the goal three times, from its original $50,000 to $1 million.
"I hope this will be a help to the synagogue, to the survivors, to the families of the people who lost their lives or are badly wounded," he said.
Plus, GoFundMe handles the donations so they will go directly to the Tree of Life Congregation.
An Iranian immigrant now studying at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in DC, Khatiri said he had no idea how quickly the page would raise this much money.
"You cannot overestimate the generosity of Americans," he said.
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