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John, eleven years ago, the unthinkable happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School. This is a long email, but I hope you’ll see why I needed to share my experience as a Sandy Hook teacher.

Eleven years ago, my second graders and I huddled in our classroom, terrified, fearing for our lives. But the trauma didn’t end there. In fact, it was just starting.

Gun violence changes people – the way their brain works, relationships, and so much more.

I’m not the same person I was eleven years ago, and I will never recover. It would be all too easy to get stuck in that terror, loss, and pain – but I decided to channel them into helping others. I became an activist, and I know I’m not the only one.

I know because I still talk to the children I helped shelter from the gunman that morning. I’m so grateful to watch those students, now 18 and most of them college freshmen, grow up – some of my colleagues’ students didn’t get to grow up. Some colleagues didn’t make it themselves.

So now, Teachers Unify has to be the voice that was stolen from them. We’re fighting for my friends, my colleagues, my students, for everyone that has had to face gun violence.

I’m reaching out now because this tragedy broke through, but we know firsthand that we're one of so, so many. School shootings will keep happening unless we raise our specific voices and tell this specific story.

My former student Ashley put it like this:

Seeing more shootings makes “you feel completely helpless, like the building is burning down and you’re pouring buckets of water on it while large corporations are dousing it with lighter fluid.

Being a gun violence survivor is having to go through something horrific, just to watch it happen over and over and over again. It happens so much that you can’t keep track anymore. The sounds of a car backfiring still makes you jump a little and your heart race.”

We formed Teachers Unify because I don’t want any of my students to live in this kind of helpless fear – and I don’t want to either.

Gun violence is preventable, and this is how we prevent it: by being honest about the cost of not doing so.

I’m so grateful for every one of you that’s allowed us to turn our anger, pain, and fear into action. Thank you for amplifying our voices and making sure we not only prevent another Sandy Hook, but keep telling these stories of why ending gun violence is critical.

This week is hard. You made it pass more easily this year.

Thank you.

Abbey Clements
Co-Founder, Teachers Unify To End Gun Violence
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