A central Vermont community will gather Monday for a celebration of the lives of five teens killed earlier this month in a crash with a wrong-way driver on Interstate 89.
Harwood Union High School will host an event to recognize the lives of the five teenagers in a ceremony in the gym. It will be live-streamed in the auditorium, which will create a capacity of about 2,200, according to a statement from Washington West Supervisory Union Superintendent Brigid Nease.
Four Harwood students — Eli Brookens, 16, of Waterbury, Liam Hale, 16, of Fayston, and Cyrus Zschau, 16, and Mary Harris, 16, both of Moretown — died in the crash. Janie Chase Cozzi, 15, of Fayston, was a student at a private school in New Hampshire.
“No one would wish to be on this journey. All of us wish we could simply be awaken from a very bad dream, but that isn’t possible,” Nease wrote in a statement.
Nease said that the school’s crisis team has been working on providing supports for students. A social worker and a clinical crisis recovery coordinator, supported by the Agency of Human Services, have been helping the school in the aftermath, according to the statement.
“There is no script, no plan for this,” Nease wrote. “We keep putting one foot in front of the other, work hour to hour, day to day and week to week, as we mourn deeply with the families of these students and our communities.”
The celebration will begin Monday at 6 p.m., and the school will provide buses from schools around the area.
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