CHARLOTTE — Students at Charlotte Catholic High School organized a school-wide prayer service Friday morning to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting, as well as to honor all the lives lost in school shootings.
The prayer service at Keffer Stadium featured a procession of students and teachers – all dressed in black – representing 172 students, 33 teachers, 8 administrators, and 2 security officers who have lost their lives in school shootings.
After they lined up on the field in front of the student body, student organizers of the prayer service read the names of the schools affected and the number of students and teachers killed at each school.
The prayer service was organized as thousands of schools across the country staged a Walkout Day to mark the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado on April 20, 1999, in which 13 people were killed.
The prayer service was the second such effort organized at Charlotte Catholic High School this year in response to gun violence in schools.
During a National Student Walkout Day on March 14, students at several Catholic
schools in the Diocese of Charlotte chose to pray rather than walk out of class.
The action was organized on the one-month anniversary of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
At Charlotte Catholic, student council members led the school in prayer over the loudspeakers before several classes, remembering each of the victims of the Parkland high school shooting on Feb. 14.
— Catholic News Herald. Carolyn Tillman contributed. Photos provided by Carolyn Tillman.
Related story: Praying in protest: Diocesan students pray during National Walkout
