Greg Zanis


Greg Zanis was an American carpenter who is most well known for building and delivering personalized crosses to shooting victims across the United States.

Early life

Zanis was born in Spokane, Washington, and grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. His father was a Greek Orthodox priest, and his mother, a Greek immigrant, was a seamstress. The family spoke Greek at home.

Crosses for Losses

The first cross that Zanis built was for his own father-in-law, a murder victim. Shortly after the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, Zanis constructed 15 crosses and delivered them to a park near the site of the shooting. The two crosses for Harris and Klebold were soon cut down by the father of one of the shooting victims.
Since that time, Zanis built and delivered over 26,000 crosses, with some Stars of David and some crescents to sites of mass shootings and natural disasters across the United States including Boston, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Parkland, Antioch Waffle House, Santa Fe High School in Texas, Annapolis, Pittsburgh Synagogue, Thousand Oaks Borderline Bar & Grill, Aurora, Illinois, Virginia Beach Municipal Building, El Paso, and Dayton. He founded an organization to raise funds for this effort, called Crosses for Losses. During that time, he kept handwritten notebooks of the names of the victims for whom he built memorials.

Personal life

In late 2019, Zanis was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He made arrangements to transfer the activities of his organization to the Lutheran Church Charities ministry of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.
Zanis died while in Hospice in Naperville IL, May 4, 2020.