NEWTON, Conn. — Two days after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, then-President Barack Obama approached a podium to speak. Before him was a room of people in shock over what had occurred in their quiet Connecticut town.
On Dec. 14, 2012, a 20-year-old gunman walked into the school in Newtown and fatally shot 20 young students and six educators.
"We had one chance to get it right," said Alan Martin, vice chairman of Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial Commission."So, we labored over the process of site selection and labored over the process of design selection. And we knew it had to be both a natural feeling, a gentle feeling, and it had to give people an opportunity to grieve."
Recognizing the significance of those mementos, they chose to incinerate them into"sacred soil." Today, that soil lives at the memorial beneath the plaque and granite stone marked with Obama's words. Krauss, along with the commission's vice chairman Martin, said they tried to make decisions through consensus. Family input, Krauss said, was paramount but would not be the only aspect taken into consideration -- they also needed a town vote to approve the $3.7 million project. Later, the State of Connecticut Bond Commission approved a $2.5 million grant which covered about 70% of costs.
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