As Newtown High School’s class of 2024 turn their tassels from right to left Wednesday night, they will be honoring their 20 classmates who will never get the chance to graduate.
About 60 of the 330 students graduating Wednesday survived one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. Twenty of their fellow first graders and six educators were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012.
The 20 students will be honored during the ceremony. Although some of the details have been kept under wraps, students will be wearing green and white ribbons on their graduation gowns, each inscribed with “Forever In Our Hearts,” according to CNN.
Five of the seniors told Hearst Connecticut Media they were handing out the ribbons as part of their membership in the gun violence prevention club, Jr. Newtown Action Alliance. The club, they told the news outlet, has been one way to honor the memory of their slain classmates while moving forward in their lives.
“For the past 10 or 11 years that it’s been since in Sandy Hook, we’ve grown so much and we do so much work to fight for (the 2012 victims) and for other people because we don’t want other people’s lives to get robbed like theirs did,” student Grace Fischer, 18, who plans to attend Hamilton College as a pre-law and justice studies major, told Heart Connecticut Media. “That’s why I think walking across that stage will be a very victorious moment.”
Grace Fischer, a survivor of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, talks about upcoming high school graduation, before a rally against gun violence on Friday, June 7, 2024, in Newtown, Conn. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston)AP
Several of the students also recently met with Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House to discuss their experiences and call for change.
Fischer told the news outlet she remembers hiding in a Sandy Hook Elementary School cubby as “those gun shots kept going and kept going.”
“It felt like an eternity,” she said.
Emma Ehrens remembers the moment when the gunman came into the classroom.
“A guy – armed – came into my classroom and started shooting all of my friends and my teachers and my classmates,” she told CNN. “His gun jammed and a friend of mine, Jesse Lewis, yelled at us to run and that’s what we did.”
Lewis’ actions helped save some of the students now graduating Wednesday but he will never walk the stage himself. He will be one of the 20 classmates remembered through the green and white ribbons Wednesday night.
Survivors of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting hold signs during a rally against gun violence on Friday, June 7, 2024 in Newtown, Conn. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston)AP
The graduating seniors will continue to carry their classmates with them as some of them look to continue fighting for gun control and helping their communities.
Ella Seaver, 18, plans to study psychology in college and to become a therapist, wanting to give back in a way that helped her.
“Putting my voice out there and working with all of these amazing people to try and create change really puts a meaning to the trauma that we all were forced to experience,” Seaver said. “It’s a way to feel like you’re doing something. Because we are. We’re fighting for change and we’re really not going to stop until we get it.”
The Associated Press contributed to this reporting.
