Yuzhe Zhong described her anguish Monday at losing husband Andy Tran in a brutal Burnaby murder two weeks earlier.
"I just hope no other families suffer what I suffer," she said, her voice breaking.
She said she had to make up a story to tell her two young children, aged two and five, about why their father isn't coming home.
"I just said Daddy is going to work in a far, far away place and for a long, long, long time and when you grow up, daddy will come back," she told a Burnaby news conference.
The community agency SUCCESS has opened a trust account at the TD bank to raise funds for Zhong and her two children.
Tran was gunned down May 27 by former security guard Angus Mitchell, who was later killed by police.
Mitchell was targeting Tran's waitress, Chinh Diem Huynh, who was also killed in the deadly shooting at Tran's Royal Oak Sushi house.
Mitchell also shot and wounded his former landlord May 29 before dying in a shoot-out with police May 30.
Former solicitor general Kash Heed has called for an inquest into the events that led up to the killing spree, including how Mitchell, 26, was able to legally get a gun permit and rifle despite a documented history of instability, aggression and mental health problems.
SUCCESS CEO Thomas Tam said the agency also appealed through the media to Huynh's family to see if it needed support, but has not heard from them,
He said Zhong called SUCCESS after her husband's death looking for support and counselling.
"I sent a female social worker to help her. In the last couple of weeks, we have been working with her family to look for different kind of services and assistance," he said.
Maggie Ip, who heads the SUCCESS Foundation, said many in the community have already reached out to the young widow, whose husband was the only "bread-winner" in the family.
"We cannot change what happened on that day to Andy Tran and wish that tragedy had never happened," Ip said. "But we could help the Tran family with moral and financial support."
Tam said in the immediate future, Zhong is looking to bring her mother from China to help care for the children.
"We are now working with the government to get this visa application face-tracked," he said.
Zhong, who immigrated from China with her husband several years ago, thanked the community for all the support she has received so far.
The news conference was held at SUCCESS's Burnaby office just around the corner from the sushi restaurant where Tran and Huynh were killed about 9:30 p.m.
Zhong asked that she not be photographed as she wants to protect her family's privacy in the years ahead.
Donations to help her family can be made at the TD Bank or any financial institution, earmarked to the SUCCESS Foundation in Trust - Yuzhe Zhong, account number 004-9720-5240599.
Donations will also be accepted from June 11-22 at SUCCESS offices in Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Coquitlam and Surrey.
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