Like graduating seniors everywhere, members of Newtown High School’s class of 2024 expect bittersweet feelings at their commencement ceremony — excitement about heading off to college or careers and sadness about leaving their friends and community.
Emma Ehrens was one of 11 children from Classroom 10 to survive the attack. She and other students managed to flee when the gunman paused to reload and another student, Jesse Lewis, yelled for everyone to run. Jesse didn't make it. Five kids and both teachers in the room were killed.“I am definitely going be feeling a lot of mixed emotions,” said Ehrens, 17. “I’m super excited to be, like, done with high school and moving on to the next chapter of my life. But I’m also so ...
“In Sandy Hook, what happened is always kind of looming over us,” said Matt Holden, 17, who was in a classroom down the hall from the shooting. “I think leaving and being able to make new memories and meet new people, even if we’ll be more isolated away from people who have stories like us, we’ll be more free to kind of write our own story. ... And kind of, you know, not let this one event that happened because we were very young define our lifetimes.
“For me, I feel like it’s definitely going to get better and be able to break free of that system and just be able to become my own person rather than, again, the Sandy Hook kid,” Ehrens said. Seaver, 18, said working with the alliance makes her feel less helpless. She plans to study psychology in college and to become a therapist, wanting to give back in a way that helped her.