A new charity is being set up in the name of Mason Rist, the 15-year-old murdered in Bristol last year, as the families of both Mason and his best friend Max Dixon continue their mission to create a positive legacy of the two teenagers.
Mason’s mum Nikki Knight said the charity is being developed with the aim of raising funds to supply much-needed education equipment – filled pencil cases – for vulnerable or deprived children who might struggle to access the stuff they need for school.
The charity is not quite ready to launch just yet, but Nikki said she wanted to create something positive going forward after her son’s murder last year.
A foundation charity set up in honour of Mason’s best friend Max Dixon is now up and running, and last week distributed its first batch of portable bleed kits that have been ordered by people across Bristol.
The Max Dixon Foundation was set up by Max’s mum Leanne Ekland in partnership with community football club Park Knowle FC, where Max was the under-16s captain, and it has now started another round of fundraising to continue to supply the bleed kits, which differ from the larger bleed kits that are increasingly being located around Bristol in wall-mounted cabinets and within businesses and stores. The Max Dixon Foundation bleed kits are smaller and designed to be carried in glove boxes of vehicles like taxis, coaches and cars.
“We have set up this foundation to educate people on the use of bleed control kits, and to hopefully get them into communities, public transport, personal vehicles, so they are always easily accessible and on hand to help if someone is having heavy blood loss,” said Carly Kingdon, from Park Knowle FC.
“We have already gone into secondary schools and spoke to year groups about the dangers of knife crime, and what to do if someone is injured. We have been to Downing Street and Westminster, where we met the Education Secretary to make this training compulsory in all secondary schools.
“Our foundation purely runs on grants, fundraising, so any help at all will go a long way to ensure we can continue to try and make a difference. Whilst the training is delivered by volunteers there is a cost for the materials used to give the public and pupils a ‘hands-on’ experience,” she added.
A year after the two boys were killed outside Mason’s house, Nikki said she is still struggling with simply living in her own home. “I’m still in the house. It’s very traumatic being there,” she said. “If it was a council house, I’d have been moved, but I’ve got to stay put, so I find that very hard.
“The whole of the UK knows where I live. It’s just every day, I have to live in that house. It’s torture, but what can you do. It’s a daily reminder. I just need to get out and keep focussed. I’ve been back to work. People deal with it very differently, and me, I just keep working and working, keep focussed all the time. I’m quite a strong person, so that’s how I’ve been keeping going,” she added.
A lot of that focus for Nikki is now on getting the charity in Mason’s name up and running – which she said will take some time.
For Max’s mum Leanne, the tragedy has brought their two families even closer together. Events to mark the first anniversary of the two boys’ murders have helped, and once again shown both families the love and support in the South Bristol community.
“We’re so grateful,” said Leanne. “It’s really difficult. It’s going to take a long time for any of us to understand and accept what’s happened. There’s no answers, there’s no closure for us. But hopefully we can turn this awful negativity into a huge positive and let Max and Mason’s name live on in a good way instead of the way they were taken away from us,” she added.
And in the year since the two murders, the families of Max and Mason have also linked up with the family of Darrian Williams, who was murdered in St Jude’s in February 2024, just a couple of weeks after Max and Mason’s murders.
Messages for Darrian were written on some of the balloons released by Max and Mason’s families at Park Knowle last weekend to mark the first anniversary of the murders, and when two oak trees were planted for Max and Mason in Knowle West, the planting ceremony was attended by Shanine Wright, Darrian’s sister.
The trees were planted outside St Barnabus Church on Daventry Road, just around the corner from Ilminster Avenue, in a special ceremony led by Rev Clive Hamilton. Speaking to Greatest Hits at the tree-planting, Mason’s sister Chloe Rist said: “All the support and the fact everyone has come together is really nice. We’ve got two trees now in memory of Mason and Max that will live on for years and years and I think a lot of people can learn from them.
“It’s a legacy that is going to be forever and that just warms my heart and gives me hope for the future that people will see this as a reminder to do good things and make good choices,” she added.
For many in the families, the first anniversary – and the series of events held to mark it – were extremely emotional. A repeated phrase all of those involved often said – from Max’s sister Kayleigh and his mum Leanne, to Mason’s grandmother Gail Iles – was ‘we shouldn’t be here’, ‘we shouldn’t have to be doing this’. The most emotional for all involved was the unveiling of a plaque to Max and Mason at Oasis John Williams Academy, the school both boys attended, and where Max’s mum Leanne works.
Seven weeks after the murders, Mason’s gran Gail told Bristol Live that she still hadn’t cried for the loss of her grandson, as she felt she had to stay strong for the rest of her family. That continued for a year, until last week. “The unveiling of the plaque at their school was too much,” she told Bristol Live. “Everyone was crying, all their friends from school. Even I went, it was the first time I cried. I hadn’t cried until then, but I did that day.”