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Spring Forward For Sandy Hook, an event created by teachers at Rogers Park Middle School in Danbury, featured a 3.1 mile course that started in Rogers Park. The course included 26 “inspiration stations” created by schools in Danbury that featured motivating quotes. There were 26 victims in the December shootings at Sandy Hook.
Two of the educators who died in the Sandy Hook shootings had deep Danbury connections. Principal Dawn Hochsprung was a vice principal at Rogers Park earlier in her career. Her husband, George, taught at Rogers Park until the day of the shooting. Lauren Rousseau was a full-time substitute in Danbury before working in Sandy Hook. Portions of the proceeds from Saturday’s event went to the Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung Memorial Fund and the Lauren Rousseau Memorial Scholarship.
“We thought as a church in the community, it was important to support the community," said Jen Marr, who was at the inspiration station staffed by Immanuel Lutheran Church. “We also wanted to support the Sandy Hook Elementary School.”
Immanuel Lutheran helped students at Sandy Hook by providing two Golden Retriever “comfort dogs,” Addie and Maggie, to the school. Addie is at the school four days a week, and Maggie relieves Addie on the other day.
“They bring amazing comfort and healing to people,’’ Marr said. “These dogs are part of the reason these kids come back to school every day.”
Theresa Rangel, a third-grade teacher at South Street Elementary School in Danbury, helped staff that school’s inspiration station. Their quote was from Albert Einstein – “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow” – and their artistic creation featured 20 flowers and six butterflies, reflecting the 20 children and six educators who died in the shooting.
“We are in a lot of ways all connected to Sandy Hook,’’ Rangel said. “The shooting opened our eyes to the unity that teachers have. We have all felt it. Everyone is touched by it in some way.”
Rangel said her students were affected emotionally by the tragedy, but showed resilience. “I think they’re starting to come back,’’ she said. “That’s the beauty of youth. I think by teachers coming back and being as normal as possible is a big part of it.”
Newtown’s Lindsay Knauf, who is running 26 races this year to remember the 26 victims, ran Saturday’s race in memory of Rousseau. She is halfway toward her goal, with another race scheduled for Sunday in Norwalk to honor Jesse Lewis.
“I loved those inspiration stations,’’ Knauf said. “I looked at all of them as I ran by. The atmosphere is so comforting. You hope that they the victims are looking down on us and are happy that they are being remembered. We miss them every day.”
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