John, this Saturday marks twelve years since the unthinkable happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I was there. It’s too much for me to send you an email like this on the anniversary itself, but I do need to talk about it. So today, I hope you’ll read this whole email if you can.

Huddling in my classroom with my second graders was awful. We feared for our very lives – and worse, we were right to. But the trauma didn’t end when we were ushered out of the building. It’s been with us every day since.

The Abbey who walked into work that day is not the Abbey I am now. I’ll never be that version of myself again. Gun violence changes you – all the way down to your brain chemistry.

But I can’t live in that fear forever. I can’t spend my whole life mentally stuck in the coat cubbies, waiting for change. I have to help make the world safer. I have to find the community of other teachers who are heeding that same call.

That's what Teachers Unify gives us: a way to put the new versions of ourselves to work. We're fighting for everyone who has been impacted by gun violence. Frankly, this is all of us. We are a nation of survivors.

My former student Ashley says “being a gun violence survivor is having to go through something horrific, just to watch it happen over and over and over again.” We know all too well that school shootings will keep happening unless we raise our specific voices and tell this specific story.

So we’re speaking out. On the days when it’s easier and the days like today, when it’s impossibly hard. Because 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