At noon today, one year after the mass shootings in Lewiston, the Bates community gathered in Gomes Chapel for a Remembrance Service to pause, grieve, and reflect on the tragedy, while also acknowledging the acts of compassion, courage, and resilience.
“We meet in shared grief, and care, and in love, and also in shared reflection and hope for our neighbors, our city, our community,” said Bates President Garry W. Jenkins in his welcome remarks.
Jenkins spoke about Bates’ role as a caring neighbor. “Above all else, we are citizens of Lewiston, affected by the tragedy and also showing up wherever and however.”
Led by the Rev. Brittany Longsdorf, the college’s multifaith chaplain, the Remembrance Service created a shared space for the campus community to feel the emotion of grief through silence, poetry, musical offerings, student reflections, and interfaith poems and prayers.
Remembrance Service
View a PDF of the Remembrance Service program, including Lewiston and Bates community participants.
“It is not always the easiest thing to pause during one of the busiest moments of the semester and remember and hold space for our grief, and I am grateful you are taking the time to slow down and share in this meaningful moment together,” she said.
“I invite you to simmer in this beautiful chapel, allow yourself some spaciousness and authenticity and let whatever feelings rise up — joy and sorrow, gratitude and anger, hope and grief — and have their moment, each in turn, as you move through this time.”
In her remarks, Longsdorf shared how grief is “simply another form of love,” and reflected on how Bates and Lewiston have grown stronger together. “Our grief-love has bound us to each other in profound and new ways.”
In his remarks, Lewiston mayor Carl Sheline offered appreciation to Bates for supporting the city and citizens of Lewiston in the aftermath of the shootings, including the many students who created a welcoming community Halloween trick or treat event six days after the tragedy.
“I love Lewiston and I love you all,” he said. “My wish for Lewiston is simple, that we embrace community and each other.”
Jillian Scott-Lewis ’27 of Portland, Ore., was one of three students who offered reflections. In October 2023, she had been a Bates student for barely two months, she said.
“I was starting to love Maine, but I didn’t feel at home yet. At the vigils and remembrance events that I attended, I remember hearing everyone say that the Lewiston community was so strong. I can now say that Lewiston is my home, my second home, and that in the past year, it has been proven to me over and over again how strong the Lewiston community is.”
Anzal Isaak ’26 of Lewiston said that “on the hardest days, hope doesn’t always look like happiness or excitement. Sometimes hope is just a quiet resilience — the ability to keep going, to find something to hold on to, even in our saddest moments.
“Today, we honor the memories of those we’ve lost and we allow ourselves to grieve. We also acknowledge our own strength, our own ability to cope, to keep going, and to spread hope in the world. Because in the end, that’s how we honor life. By continuing to live and find peace within ourselves.”
The Remembrance Service included the reading of the names of the 18 people killed in the shootings, and the communal singing of “Dona Nobis Pacem” (“Grant Us Peace”) led by the College Choir, directed by Assistant Professor of Music Zen Kuriyama.
Samantha McCune, a Multifaith Chaplaincy program coordinator, delivered the closing blessing.
Categories Lewiston-Auburn The College
