On Monday morning, May 6, the rain held off just long enough for students and staff at Heritage Middle School to dedicate their new memorial garden and park bench, created to honor the shooting victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The tragedy touched the hearts of students in Andy Habing’s North Pointe class, who decided they wanted to create a special place of remembrance. Thanks to the generosity of employees at Home Depot on Maxtown Road, that dream became a reality. Home Depot personnel embraced the idea, and through their Giving Back program, they ended up donating all the necessary supplies to build the memorial. They also sent several volunteers to help with construction and planting.
The garden consists of a large, heart-shaped flower bed flanked by two Japanese Weeping Cherry trees. In the center rests a homemade park bench, etched with the names of each victim who lost their life on December 14, 2012. Stepping stones lead to the bench, which is surrounded by perennials and Forget-Me-Nots. The flower bed is finished with mulch and a hand-built bird house christened “The House of Love.”
Habing said, “Maybe our garden will be a place for the community to sit and watch a baseball game in the nearby field, or a place for students to study, but it will always represent hope and peace to the families who lost a loved on that day and maybe even serve as an example that violence is never the right answer.”
A digital scrapbook is available for viewing online at http://tiny.cc/heritagesandy.