A walk to remember Declan Laverty will be held at 4pm on Saturday afternoon at the Jingili Water Gardens – nearly one year since the 20-year-old was killed after being stabbed while working his shift at a Darwin bottleshop.

Declan’s mum Samara Laverty has travelled to Darwin for the event, which organisers said is non-political, and meant to pay respect to the young man “and to show his family how this tragedy has affected everyone”.

Ms Laverty told Mix 104.9 on Friday that she was still shedding a lot of tears over the loss of her son.

“Keeping focused and getting these things done, is definitely helping,” she said. “It’s the down time when the emotions start to hurt.”

She added the memorial walk would involve “no politics and no rallies”.

“This is not about anything other than remembering a pretty cool young man,” she said. “He could make me laugh like nobody else and [he loved] dogs.

“Honestly, I think he’d be fine if nobody came as long as the dogs did. There was never a dog that didn’t like him.”

Organisers said dogs were more than welcomed at the walk and that those in attendance, which will include politicians, should all wear black and yellow.

“It would be fantastic to get a huge crowd walking peacefully there to show his family how devastated our town is and to show them we care,” an organiser said.

“If we could get a huge crowd it would be a very powerful message … that Darwin and the entire NT has had a gutful of the senseless violent crime.

“If people could wear some yellow and black that would be great too as Declan was an avid Richmond supporter.”

Ms Laverty said she hoped the event would pay tribute to her son and remind people of

“We want people to come together and acknowledge what happened; it’s so relatable, it could have been anyone’s kid at work,” she told Mix 104.9.

“The support that we have had has just been amazing. We want to let people just be with us and show that they care.”