More than 900 school shootings have taken place in the United States in the 10 years since the Dec. 14, 2012, mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
After the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting at their elementary school, Hegarty said she and her classmates were inundated with gifts of support from across the country, including teddy bears and Christmas ornaments.
As that list grew, so too did the number of student survivors of school gun violence, a community that is estimated to now total thousands of people.The survivors of school shootings describe themselves as being in a club that no one wants to join and one that should not exist. In the years since, Jenkins Smith said she has sent her own letters of encouragement to survivors of school shootings. Though she didn't know it at the time, her efforts were the beginnings of a crucial support network.
She said she and her classmates turned to each other for support, as only they knew what they had been through. As a Columbine survivor, she said she and her classmates are paving the way in many respects, showing other survivors what life is like five, 10, 15, and 20 years after a school shooting. Kaufman and other survivors said it's different talking about the grief and fear of a school shooting with parents or counselors than it is with students who, like you, have to return to the school that was the scene of a shooting, or who now jump at the sound of a fire alarm, or who are paralyzed by fears of starting at a new school.
"When anniversaries come up, we always text each other, or when it's the beginning of the school year, which can be kind of hard, or if it's someone's birthday," Tretta said. "We're normal friends on top of that." "They were identifying right away as survivors and their stories were so eerily similar to my own experience, just 20 years later," said Garrigan. "That fear is something you only feel as a survivor."
"Survivors kind of knew exactly what to ask me and how to make me feel better," she said. "So it was very comforting."
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