John–
On the way home from the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, my son was driving because my car was part of the crime scene. I had to leave my car at the school, along with all my things. When the shooting started, I didn't have time to grab anything, just barely enough time to get my students into the closet to hide.
We were in there for about an hour and a half. The SWAT team came to evacuate us, with guns drawn, wearing helmets and shields. I was instructed, along with three other adults and 18 fourth graders that were all crowded into that closet, to run out of the building, under SWAT team protection.
I joined a club no one wants to join that day: Survivors of gun violence, a group that has continued to grow in the ten years since that tragedy.
But as that club has grown, we've built networks of support that have kept us going. We've created spaces where survivors can share their experiences with one another and collaborate on ways to channel our grief into action.
Together, we've built a movement.
On the ten year mark of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, join me in honoring fellow survivors and victims of gun violence with action. Add your name and take the pledge to help end this crisis in 2023.
This last decade has been difficult. In 2018, my close and dear friend Diana had to use what she learned from my tragic experience to survive another school shooting, as the librarian at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. And then just this year, I watched in horror as 19 children and two teachers were shot and killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, knowing firsthand the pain and suffering that community would be going through.
Every day, I think of the 20 children and six adults—my students and my coworkers—who were shot and killed that day in 2012. Nothing can bring them back; but my memory of them has fueled my commitment to this movement, as it has for so many others.
In the ten years since that tragedy, we've banded together and created hope. What first seemed like a lost cause to so many has become a movement 10 million supporters strong. We've shifted the culture in our country by electing gun sense champions, flipping statehouses, passing life-saving gun laws, and holding the gun industry accountable. We've put our communities on the path to a future free from gun violence.
Together, we've accomplished so much in the last ten years—but as a survivor, I know how much work we have left to do. Take the pledge to honor survivors and victims of gun violence with action in 2023: Add your name.
As my son was driving me home after many, many hours in the evacuation area at Sandy Hook, I had a very dry throat. I asked him to stop at a gas station to get a bottle of water; something that used to be mundane.
As he got out of the car, my breath caught in my chest. I felt instant panic. What if there was a shooter in the gas station? How could I let my son go in there?
That is when I knew my life was going to be different. Never again could I say definitively to my students or my own children, "don't worry, you are safe." I thought: If an innocent and beautiful elementary school community could be beset by such a tragedy, how could any other place ever be safe again?
That thought has haunted me for years. But because of you, I have reason to hope. Together, I know we'll continue to work to protect our loved ones and to create safer communities for everyone.
Thank you for being a part of this movement.
Yvonne Cech
Everytown Survivor Network
