On Ten-Year Mark Since Sandy Hook, Youth Activists Grieve Alongside the Newtown Community for the Stolen Future of Over Two Dozen Children and Educators

New York, NY — The depth of loss weighs heavily today, on the ten-year mark since the unspeakable tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. On this day a decade ago, many of us—children ourselves—learned for the first time that we, too, could be massacred in the very classrooms designed to be a safe haven from cruelty. It didn’t make sense at the time and it continues to confound us today that our nation could let such an atrocity stand without deeply interrogating our gun-worshiping culture and seeking every possible policy solution to prevent one more child from facing a similar end.

Our searing grief simply can’t be captured in words, and our hearts ache alongside the loved ones left behind. As youth activists and survivors, we feel the wrenching pain of this loss intimately, and wish peace and comfort to the families and loved ones of the children and educators taken from us that day.

No amount of time can bridge the gap of such profound loss. Yet, as the years go on, more and more children and families unwillingly join this club of sorrow. We became part of this growing group of Americans merely six years after Sandy Hook, and now that we’re in this fight, we won’t rest until we transform society to put our lives before guns; the future that they deserved.

We grieve with Sandy Hook and fight on.

##