May 29 has been set as the date on which construction will begin on a new library for Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The facility will replace the one in which two teen gunmen committed suicide April 20, 1999, after they killed 12 classmates and one teacher and wounded 23 others in the bloodiest school incident in U.S. history.
Many of the building contractors are donating their services to offset some of the $3.1-million project’s cost, which is being funded privately by HOPE (Healing of People Everywhere), a group of family members and friends of the student victims. Co-chair Rita Kahn said in the March 29 Denver Post that HOPE wants to reclaim the library as “a place where children can learn, not a place where children have bad memories.” HOPE had raised $1.3 million, with donations pouring in from people ranging from prison inmates to schoolchildren.
The paper also said that former Columbine library assistant Mary Swanson is interviewing teachers for a forthcoming book. “They’re not the kind of people who’ll toot their own horns,” she explained.
Posted April 3, 2000.