The public is stepping forward with an outpouring of financial donations to help the people hurt Saturday when a car rammed into counter-protesters during an alt-right demonstration in Charlottesville, Va.
The funds that totaled $823,897 as of early Tuesday evening are also going toward helping the family of Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who died after being struck by the car. The donations are coming through the crowd-funding website www.GoFundMe.com.
The largest of the campaigns, one set up to help Heyer's family, was shut down by Tuesday evening because it reached its goal. That campaign raised $224,975. Another campaign for Dre Harris -- a black man who was hit with water bottles, sprayed with pepper spray and beaten with metal poles -- raised $128,228 as of Tuesday evening, almost three times its goal of $50,000.
Rob Solomon, GoFundMe CEO, said in an e-mail to USA TODAY that the response to the Charlottesville incident was similar to that of what the crowdfunding website saw in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting in June 2016 in Orlando in which security guard Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people, including himself.