NEWTOWN, CT (WHDH)– Nearly 2,000 miles separate Newtown, Connecticut from Uvalde, Texas but tragedy has forever linked the two towns.
Thursday night, residents of Newtown gathered at a vigil to show their support for the families of Uvalde as they deal with the pain of losing the 19 children and two teachers who were killed inside Robb Elementary School.
Nearly 10 years earlier, the people attending the vigil were in the exact same shoes after a gunman opened fire inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School and took the lives of 20 students and six staff members.
“You are not alone, we are with you,” Senator Richard Blumenthal said.
A young woman who was a first-grader at the time of the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012 shared a poem she wrote after Tuesday’s deadly violence.
“Twenty students my age, in my town, coming home in bags was traumatizing enough,” she said. “They’ll bring cookies and thoughts and prayers but since when did such meaningless words ever bring a mother comfort?”
“How many more kids have to die before power makes radical change to these horrific conditions?” the girl’s mother asked those assembled in Trinity Episcopal Church. “When power refuses to protect our kids, then we must organize and challenge power.”
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