A vigil Saturday night near the Alma Mater platform honored the victims of a Friday morning shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn., in which 26 were killed. The shooting rampage last week paralleled similar tragedies earlier in 2012.

Rashaad Young, one of the event organizers and junior in ACES, led the attendees in prayer for a better future, free of violence for children in America. Young encouraged students to think of the even younger people who were killed in the shooting.

“It’s time to for us to come together as a community,” Young said, urging attendees to pray for the victims and their families. “It’s not about us anymore. It’s about a younger generation.” 

Students at the event said they wished to stand in solidarity with the grieving families of victims.

“I feel like as a nation … we just have to recognize (the victims),” said Charlie Dao, sophomore in LAS. “No one at a very early age and no one at all deserves to die because of someone’s problems.” 

Other students valued the sense of community at the vigil. Cristina Morales, senior in AHS, said the event brought students together at a difficult time.

“(This is) a way for us to feel a connection with each other after the tragedy,” Morales said. “It’s a way for us to mourn together.”

Young and Devyn Spear, co-organizer of the event and freshman in ACES, also touched on the wider issue of gun control brought to mind by the massacre. Young vowed to take to social media to publicize a campaign of letter-writing to public officials on the issue.

“It’s time for a change,” he said. “At the University of Illinois, we know we have power. We might as well use it. We need to get politicians to a point where they can change gun laws.” 

Champaign City Council member Will Kyles, District 1, also attended the event. As the parent of a kindergartener, Kyles said he laments the loss of life.

“It’s definitely sad,” he said. “These things keep happening around our country. It went from adults to high schoolers. Now kids? There’s definitely something in our society that we need to work on.”

For many, the incident in Connecticut likely brought back memories of other gun violence earlier in the year. Back on July 20, a gunman opened fire on a midnight showing of “The Dark Night Rises,” killing 12 people and wounding at least 58. The shooter, James Holmes, was a 24-year-old dropout Ph.D. candidate from the University of Colorado Denver. Another shooting followed a few weeks later when, on Aug. 5, Wade Page killed six people and wounded three others at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis.

Ilya can be reached at [email protected].