Residents of Texas town feel helpless after church shooting
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas — Volunteers donated blood at a community hall and others stocked the refrigerator and laid out loaves of bread at a food pantry as the stunned community of Sutherland Springs struggled to recover from the shooting at a Baptist church that left more than two dozen dead.
Law enforcement officials reopened the intersection Thursday where the First Baptist Church sits, but black mesh material was tied to the chain-link fence surrounding it. With the church door open, a tall wooden cross could be seen at the altar.
Judy and Rod Green, who married at the church 15 years ago, prepared Thursday to open the By His Grace food pantry next door for a weekly Friday morning meal service.
A few blocks away, Alice Garcia, a Sutherland Springs native and the president of the unincorporated town’s community association, prepared with her husband, Oscar, the annual Veterans Day memorial on the grounds of the community hall, when the church victims with military backgrounds will receive a full military salute.
“Everyone in the community is doing what they can, but honestly everyone feels so helpless,” 20-year-old Karyssa Calbert of neighboring Floresville, Texas, said at the hall.
Six months pregnant, Calbert couldn’t donate blood but came to the community hall to offer moral support. “People are donating time, donating money, donating prayers, but it still feels like it’s not enough,” she said.
The church will be demolished, the pastor said.
Pastor Frank Pomeroy told leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention earlier this week that it would be too painful to continue using First Baptist Church as a place of worship.