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U.S. NEWS Saturday 11 November 2017

American Living:

Food pantry brings mourners together after church shooting

By EMILY SCHMALL A new school was built
Associated Press elsewhere. A one-room
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Tex- Amish schoolhouse near
as (AP) — The reopening Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
of a food pantry offered was torn down in 2006, 10
this stricken Texas com- days after an assailant took
munity another chance to children hostage and shot
mourn Friday as the charity and killed five girls ages 6 to
resumed its weekly opera- 13. The previous site of the
tions five days after more school is now a pasture.
than two dozen people A nearly identical school-
were killed at the church house with a security fence
next door. was erected nearby and
People crowded inside the named New Hope School.
By His Grace pantry, tear- Devin Patrick Kelley shot
fully hugging and filling and killed 25 people at the
bags with donated bakery church. Authorities have
goods, groceries and used put the official toll at 26,
clothing. because one of the victims
The pantry’s director, Lula was pregnant.
White, was among those Kelley died from a self-in-
killed in the shooting Sun- Rod Green, left, and his wife Judy, work with David Shields, right as they prepare to open By His flicted gunshot wound af-
day at First Baptist Church. Grace, a food pantry affiliated with Sutherland Springs Baptist Church, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017, in ter being shot and chased
Sutherland Springs, Texas. The Greens wanted to open the food pantry, which is located next to
White was also the 71-year- the church, despite the recent shooting at the small South Texas community where more than two by two residents when he
old grandmother of the dozen were killed. was leaving the church,
gunman’s wife. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) authorities said.
As 68-year-old Brandy she helped straighten piles At annual Veterans Day washed, and chairs will be Meanwhile, funerals have
Johnson walked in, she of used clothing. She said observances Saturday, the placed inside — one to started. On Thursday, more
flinched and she said she volunteering at the pan- church victims with military commemorate each of the than 500 people attended
could “see Lu at the desk.” try had given her a sense backgrounds will receive dead. a private service at a San
White “had a heart as big of purpose and a way to a full military salute on the Green said services will nev- Antonio-area Air Force
as Texas,” she said. channel her grief about los- grounds of the commu- er take place there again. base for Scott and Karen
Judy Green, along with ing friends in the shooting. nity hall, said Alice Garcia, He said the church plans Marshall, a husband and
her husband, Rod, have “There’s a lot of poverty in president of the unincor- to build a new structure on wife who both served in the
operated the pantry for this area, but people don’t porated town’s community property it owns elsewhere. military, said Randy Martin,
11 years. She said she has only come here for some- association. Services will be held Sun- spokesman for the 12th Fly-
slept little since Sunday, thing to eat. These people “Everyone in the commu- day at the community hall. ing Training Wing.
waking up screaming from make them think they have nity is doing what they can, Pastor Frank Pomeroy told Eleven people remained
nightmares. The couple, someone in their life,” she but honestly everyone feels leaders of the Southern hospitalized Friday
who were married at the said, gesturing toward the so helpless,” 20-year-old Baptist Convention earlier with wounds from the
church, were not at the Greens. Karyssa Calbert of neigh- this week that it would be shooting.q
service Sunday but later Law enforcement officials boring Floresville, Texas, too painful to continue us-
watched as worshippers have reopened the in- said at the hall. ing First Baptist Church as a
were carried out in body tersection where the First Before the church is demol- place of worship.
bags. Baptist Church stands, but ished, it will serve as a tem- Other sites of mass shoot-
“It is fresh in my mind. I see it black mesh material was porary memorial, said Rod ings have been torn down,
all — just over and over and tied to the chain-link fence Green, who also serves as including Sandy Hook Ele-
over,” Judy Green said. surrounding it. With the the grounds steward for the mentary in Newtown, Con-
Deana Cassel, who is 52 bullet-ridden church door church. necticut, where a gunman
and a lung cancer pa- open, a tall wooden cross The building will be killed 20 children and six
tient, wiped away tears as could be seen at the altar. scrubbed down and white- adults in December 2012.