PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The close-knit community at Girard College is remembering Kristopher Minners, a residential advisor at the school who was killed in Saturday’s mass shooting on South Street.

“This kid was a light. He was an absolute light that the world needed,” said James Turner, the school’s interim president.

Minners, 22, had been working at Girard College only since January, first as a residential advisor for sixth-graders at the boarding school, and most recently in a position supervising second graders.

“He was humble. And kids gravitated to him,” Turner said. “He would come into a room, and they were like butterflies to a flame. They loved him.”

Counselors were on hand Monday to help students at the Philadelphia boarding school process the news of Minners’ death.

“They embraced the boys as a group,” Turner said. “[They] told them what happened, wanted to know what the boys were feeling.”

Therapy dogs were also being used at the school to help students cope with the sudden loss.

“Our last communication was a birthday text I sent to him,” Turner said. “He’d just turned 22 on Thursday.”

Students in grades 1-12 live at Girard College during the week but go home on weekends. Turner said administrators called each family before they returned Sunday, to give them the option to be the first to tell students about Minners’ death.

Counselors were also made available for first-graders, Turner said, because the uncle of one of them was shot in the foot in the South Street mayhem.

Girard is an independent five-day boarding school serving grades 1-12. Minners attended Girard until ninth grade when his family moved in 2014, Turner said.

“He was interested in coming back to work at Girard. And his interview — he blew us away with his interview,” Turner said. “It was a Zoom, and I swear the computer was vibrating with this warm presence of this kid whose smile just lit up the darn screen as he talked about wanting to come back to the school that he left.”

Minners was named RA of the month in March.

“He loved his relationship with his students to make sure that they make good choices,” Turner said.

Girard College is planning a balloon release to honor Minners’ memory. Turner said the school is also renaming the honor it bestows on its residential advisors.

“We’re going to name that award the Kristopher Jordan Minners Award, that’s given out monthly to RAs.”

Turner said he is also joining forces with the presidents of the Gesu School, an independent K-8 parochial school serving North Philadelphia, and St. Joseph’s Prep, a Catholic boys’ high school, to advocate for gun reform.