Column: Our Newtown is 'shaken to the core'

• Both my children attended Sandy Hook Elementary School.
• Sandy Hook is a special place, where parents devote themselves to their children.
• Please pray for our town.

I live between the Sandy Hook Elementary School and the house of the shooter, Adam Lanza. I seriously thought I lived in the safest place in America.

I remember during the 9/11 crisis feeling grateful that my children had an elementary school to attend that was so safe. The school is tucked back down a long driveway with a firehouse at its entrance. Both my children attended Sandy Hook Elementary School, where Friday's mass shooting sadly took place.

The heroes in the school were my children's teachers. I always knew they were heroes — and, now, the world knows, too. The elementary school was a place of learning and laughter. Had the tragedy not happened, Sandy Hook Elementary School would have been the collection site for the annual Newtown Holiday Fund.

Christmas time of giving

Newtowners adopt local families in need at Christmastime and buy them gifts and food. But the tragedy did not stop our giving. Instead, the drop-off site was changed to a different school. This is the kind of community we are.

Sandy Hook is a special place, where parents devote themselves to their children. Before last week, one of our biggest problems was not enough field space for our kids to play baseball and soccer.

When I saw the baseball field in the background of TV pictures from the school, I thought of the typical scene: parents watching their kids play baseball, young boys in grass-stained pants and their moms wiping sunscreen on the backs of their necks to protect them from the sun.

I also see the news media at the Treadwell Park, where families come to swim at the local pool in the summer, play soccer in the fall and sled down the hills on snowy days in the winter.

Neighbors help neighbors

We are the kind of town that when we find out that someone has cancer, we take up collections for their treatment, bring them casseroles and pray for them in our churches. We come together at Relay for Life and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer research.

We are the kind of town that when we lose electricity in hurricanes we stick together, we open our homes and businesses to others.

On Labor Day, our parade is the biggest in our state. Children ride on scooters with their schools, churches make floats on top of pickup trucks, cancer survivors march arm in arm, and politicians throw candy.

On Halloween this same street turns into a magical scene of decorated homes, with literally thousands of princesses, pirates and superheroes running to doors to get candy. But because our community cares about the well-being of children, the "Tooth Fairy" also stands on the street passing out tooth brushes.

We are a place where kids play in their yards and mothers push strollers. One of the young lives that was lost in the shooting was from my neighborhood. I used to love driving by his home and observing him and his brother and friends playing. It had brought me joy to see their pure happiness.

This is a small town. Our lives are all intertwined. We are shaken to the core. Please pray for our town.

Addie Sandler lives in Newtown, Conn., with her husband and two children.

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