HeyBrett

First of all, thank you. Thank you for lighting a candle and sharing this message with everyone you know. I am writing you as a father and longtime citizen of New Hampshire. When I heard the news about the senseless tragedy in Mont Vernon, I was completely overwhelmed with emotion to the point I had to close my office door while I wept. I could not get the thought out of my head that something like this had happened. It blindsided my soul (and all of ours) and rocked my belief that as a human race, we had been evolving to be the best we can be. It just felt like a step - a massive step - backwards.

As the hours went on Monday and then into the following Tuesday, I couldn’t help but feel an extreme wide range of emotions (which we are all sharing) and a gnawing inside me that said, “No. I refuse to believe that we are going backward. We are better than this.” Four teenagers brutally robbed the Cates family and while also robbing a bit of our souls in the process. We are innocently and beautifully pursuing happy, productive, loving and full spiritual lives, participating in making each of our lives and the lives of those we love around us better. This occurrence has left that feeling shattered for many of us. We are filled with sadness and anger that some souls remaining on this planet still choose to decide to take that beauty away from the rest of us.

I took a step back and decided I wanted to do something. I relied on what I know best – the internet and social media - and with the help of the most loving and wonderful friends and colleagues, put up this site. So often you hear about the masses congregating in these technological spaces for reasons seemingly without much substance. We felt like we might be able to unify people locally in our great state and beyond in support of the families involved and encourage the best part of humanity to rise to the top of this. The phrase “We are better than this” stuck with us as the message and we quickly registered the domain and set up a web site overnight so that people could congregate, light a candle and share their message with others. Seven hundred people attended the candle light vigil in Mont Vernon and so far well over 20,000 people from all over NH, the United States and around the world who could not be present, have started a candle light vigil of their own here. I am blown away as 7000 occured within just a 24-hour window from going live.

Not only is the effort raising awareness of the tragic events and building a supportive community but creating a dialogue about how senseless the acts were while offering support for the families. I'm here today to encourage the people of New Hampshire, the United States and the world to support the families involved and use these events to step back and reevaluate how we live our lives. This site, www.WeAreBetterThanThis.com, shows that technology can be used to rally people quickly and easily to get this important dialogue going and that social media can be used for the greater good of mankind.

All I ask of you great, powerful and wonderful people out there is to light as many candles as you can, express your feelings and then share this with everyone you know. You. Me. Us. We’re all better than what happened on October 4, 2009, to an innocent mother and her daughter.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Cates family and everyone who has been touched by this.

Friend, father, citizen of New Hampshire
& of the human race

If you have a comment or question, feel free to email me here. I would love it though if you decided to comment here so others can hear your thoughts.

P.S. I am overwhelmed by the participation and the attention even the media is giving this. If you are with the media, please feel free to utilize this message, and we thank you for using your channel to get the message out. We are very grateful.

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