A man has planted more than 25,000 flags in his yard to represent each person who has passed away in the Lone Star State as a result of Covid-19.
Shane Reilly, a Texas-based artist, has a son with underlying health conditions, which makes him vulnerable amid the ongoing pandemic.
His recent gesture is a nod to the thousands of people who have died due to the coronavirus in Texas - and he hopes it will encourage people to take lockdown restrictions more seriously.
The doting father told CBS News he began the project earlier this year in May as a response to those who were continuously flouting social distancing guidelines around him.
"Everybody had gone into lockdown, 'Tiger King' was big on Netflix. Everybody was sort of treating this like a mandatory vacation. We were all baking sourdough," he said.
Given that Reilly's 17-year-old son is immunocompromised, he was naturally upset that people in his community were not taking the measures seriously.
"Don't kill my kid," is the message he hopes to send these people with his flag project.
So, he bought himself a large number of little red, white, and pink flags and started filling his yard with them.
"Each one of these flags represents a mom or a husband or somebody's kid that has died, and these are real, individual people," Reilly said. "I hope that somebody could look at this and say, 'Okay, here's something I can do to save a life.'"
He adds more flags every other day, as the deaths in the state continue to rise.
In order to fund the project, he started a GoFundMe.
"I've been leading this charge on my own until now and have gained interest from around the world, reaching thousands of people," he wrote on the fundraising page.
"With your help, we can pressure the Texas government to create a statewide memorial to our Mothers and Fathers, our Children, and our Lovers and Friends that we have lost to this tragic pandemic."
Reilly also revealed that both his aunt and cousin have tested positive for Covid.
"She's got two little kids at home that are afraid they're going to lose their mom," he said about his cousin.
His simple request is: "I'm just asking people to be heroes. Put a mask on."
As per John Hopkins University data, there are 1,584,207 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Texas, and there have been 25,714 deaths in the state, at the time of writing.
