Newtown resident Veronica Marr sings a song about peace with other's during a evening peace march on Saturday, December 22, 2012 in Newtown. The group marched from Edmond Town Hall to Sandy Hook and the growing memorial for the children and teachers killed up the road at Sandy Hook Elementary School. (Photo by Joshua Trujillo, Hearst Newspapers)
The weather on Newtown’s Main Street was 37 degrees, but much less with the wind chill. Still, Saturday night just more than a dozen Newtown residents and others from nearby gathered to march from town hall to the memorial near Sandy Hook Elementary School.
“It’s time for us to develop a culture of peace,” said organizer Veronica Marr, a 10-year Newtown resident. “Together we birth a culture of peace. It’s on the sight right here.”
She pointed to the big vinyl banner hanging across the pillars of Edmond Town Hall off Main Street. Marr, who has worked as an interior designer, created the sign and similar banners the group carried to the Sandy Hook memorial Saturday night.
The group was part of a peace gathering earlier in the day, planned in advance of last week’s violence that took the lives of 28 people.
Their original plan was to march from Fairfield Hill, past the high school and down the hill to Sandy Hook. But that four-mile route was swapped about 9:30 p.m. for a mile walk partially because of the biting wind.
The small group chanted as they marched, modifying the lyrics to John Lennon’s 1969 single “Give Peace a Chance,” to, “All we are seeing is great peace right now.”
“This is really becoming a new vocation,” said Marr, also known as Neci. “I feel the impulse to really drive humanity forward.”
Casey McNerthney can be reached at caseymcnerthney@seattlepi.com. Follow Casey on Twitter at twitter.com/mcnerthney.