More than $1 million has already been raised for the future of Erin Piacenti’s young daughter, Madison.

Now, another group is focusing on something much more immediate.

The people connected to Madison’s school community have launched a separate $120,000 fundraiser designed to cover five years of daycare, an effort organizers say could give her father, Frank Piacenti, one major expense he will not have to carry alone as he raises his daughter without Erin.

The new campaign, titled “Together for Madison: Honoring the Life of Erin Piacenti,” was organized by Ti Patel, who identifies herself as Madison’s school owner. According to the fundraiser, it was created with Frank’s permission, and all money raised will go directly to him for Madison’s childcare costs.

It is a smaller campaign than the fundraiser that has already drawn thousands of donations from across the country.

But that is also what makes it different.

The first campaign asks people to think about Madison’s entire future.

This one asks them to think about Monday morning.

Who will care for her? How can Frank maintain stability while grieving his wife and parenting their child alone? And what practical burden can the people already connected to Madison’s everyday life take off his shoulders?

The school community has chosen one answer: daycare.

A Second Fund With a Much Narrower Mission

The larger fundraiser, organized by Frank’s brother-in-law Shray Gupta in consultation with the family, has already surpassed $1 million and attracted roughly 9,000-plus donations.

Its mission is broad: helping support Madison as she grows up and ensuring she is surrounded by family, friends, stories and memories that allow her to know who her mother was. Frank is listed as the beneficiary.

The newer campaign is much more specific.

“Our goal is to raise enough money to cover Madison’s daycare costs for the next five years,” Patel wrote.

The organizers describe that expense not simply as a bill, but as part of creating “consistency, stability, love, and care” through some of Madison’s earliest years.

The distinction helps explain why a second fundraiser would emerge even after the first one became extraordinarily successful.

This is not presented as a replacement for the original fund.

It is a community identifying one recurring expense that will arrive month after month, long after the news coverage surrounding Erin’s death begins to fade.

The campaign says that covering daycare could give Frank “one less thing to worry about” as he focuses on raising his daughter.

That sentence captures the emotional core of the new effort.

There is no amount of fundraising that can restore the life Frank and Erin expected to have together.

But there are still bills, schedules, drop-offs and ordinary parenting decisions waiting for him.

The Life That Changed in an Afternoon

Erin, 32, was fatally stabbed in Times Square in a random attack on Aug. 31.

Police said Pamela Cisneros attacked Erin and a 68-year-old man near West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue. The second victim survived. Officers later shot Cisneros after police said she refused commands to drop two knives.

Erin worked as a vice president at Bank of America and had returned to work after maternity leave. She and Frank had welcomed their daughter only months earlier.

The family fund says Erin and Frank had celebrated their second wedding anniversary during the summer and had recently returned from a family road trip.

They were, the fundraiser says, preparing to build their life with their new daughter.

Then that future changed in an instant.

Those details have already reached a national audience.

The original campaign spread rapidly, eventually crossing the seven-figure mark. Donations came from thousands of strangers as well as people and organizations connected to Erin’s professional and personal life.

The new fundraiser tells the story from a different distance.

It comes not from the broad public response to the tragedy but from people who expect to be part of Madison’s routine.

Five Years of Something Ordinary

Daycare is not the kind of detail that normally becomes the center of national coverage after a violent death.

That is precisely why the new campaign is revealing.

The first days after a tragedy often bring flowers, donations, condolences and promises of support. But raising a young child is measured in years, not days.

Childcare has to be arranged repeatedly. It has to remain reliable. For a working parent, it can shape nearly every part of the week.

The fundraiser says its goal is to provide Madison with five years of childcare and to offer Frank some peace of mind while he raises his daughter.

In that sense, the campaign is trying to turn collective grief into something concrete.

Not a symbolic memorial.

Not an abstract promise to be there.

A place for Madison to go, consistently, while she grows.

And for Frank, one less recurring decision to make while adapting to a life he never expected to be living.

“There are no words or gestures that can replace Erin,” the organizers wrote.

Instead, they say, the community can surround Frank and Madison and make the road ahead “a little less difficult.”

Why $1 Million Does Not Make the Second Fund Meaningless

From the outside, a reasonable question remains: Why launch another fundraiser when the first has already raised so much?

The answer appears in the way the two campaigns describe themselves.

The family’s original fundraiser is built around Madison’s long-term future and Erin’s legacy.

The school campaign has chosen a defined, measurable commitment: five years of daycare.

That does not mean the family lacks resources for childcare, and the fundraiser does not claim that Frank is unable to pay those expenses himself.

Rather, the campaign frames the effort as a way for one community to assume one piece of the burden.

That distinction matters.

The story is not simply that more money is being raised.

It is about how support is changing shape as the immediate shock gives way to the practical realities of what comes next.

What Happens From Here

The second campaign is still in its early stages compared with the original fund.

Its stated target remains $120,000, with the money intended to go directly to Frank toward Madison’s childcare.

Whether it eventually reaches that goal is still unknown.

What is already clear is why the organizers chose that number and that mission.

The national response has focused on giving Madison a future after losing her mother.

The people in her school community are focusing on how she gets through the next five years of everyday life.

That may be the quieter challenge facing Frank now.

The headlines described what his family lost in one afternoon.

The new fundraiser is about everything that still has to happen the morning after — and every morning that follows.