COVID prompts change to shooting anniversary
Smaller services, virtual gatherings planned as town commemorates those slain at Sandy Hook school
NEWTOWN — Observances for the most solemn date on Newtown’s calendar will be modified next Monday, as so much else has been in life during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The eighth anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting on Dec. 14 will be marked with virtual gatherings, with smaller services, and with private remembrances to control the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
This year means no large anniversary Mass will be held for officials and the public at St. Rose of Lima Church the night of the anniversary. Instead two smaller services will be held, one in the morning of the anniversary, and a private evening Mass with the traditional reading of the victims’ names. In addition, no in-person interfaith prayer service will be held on the night of the anniversary, but instead a virtual service will be live-streamed on social media.
“There is something deeply significant about coming together in-person physically as a community,” said the Rev. Matt Crebbin, the pastor of Newtown Congregational Church and a member of the Newtown Interfaith Clergy Association. “But we know that is not the best for the well-being of our community at this time, so we have decided to offer a virtual alternative this year.”
In the schools, which have traditionally provided an early morning service for faculty and staff when the anniversary has fallen on a weekday, a virtual service will be offered, Superintendent Lorrie Rodrigue said.
Since no children will be in classrooms on Dec. 14 because the remote learning schedule has been extended until after the winter break, age-appropriate messages about the anniversary will be provided remotely to students in the upper grades.
“We are making sure our students — including the Sandy Hook students at the high school — have the support and the connections they need,” Rodrigue said. “We have communicated with our families of loss and spoken with our team about our plans to honor and respect this date as we always have.”
The anniversary of the day a gunman shot his way into a locked Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 20 first-graders and six educators affects Newtown families differently. To some families, the anniversary represents raw grief. Other families invoke the anniversary as a cautionary tale to advocate for safer schools and healthier com
munities. Some families want their privacy on the anniversary, to be alone with the pain that never goes away.
The diversity of Newtown’s grief is partly why elected leaders have not had townwide remembrances, except perhaps for a moment of silence in the morning at town buildings.
“We ask all people to reflect privately at their homes or at their places of worship,” First Selectman Dan Rosenthal said. “I can’t believe it’s been eight years since that day our families lost so much.”
Crebbin agreed the way to honor the victims was to respect the different paths that grief has taken for those whose lives have been forever changed.
“We try to provide a place where people can come together, but we don’t tell anybody where they have to be (in their grief), because some folks are in different places, and it’s a long journey,” Crebbin said. “Everybody doesn’t have to be in one place, so we try to give everybody their space.”
Anniversary morning services are planned at 6:45 a.m. and at 9 a.m. at St. Rose of Lima Church and are capped at 100 people each.
A 7 p.m. interfaith prayer service on Dec. 14 may be viewed on the Newtown Congregational Church Facebook site.