A unity vigil in response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia is planned for the Peconic Riverfront on Monday evening.
“A community gathering to share messages of healing and comfort” will talke place at 6 p.m. Monday at the gazebo on Heidi Behr Way and McDermott Avenue.
The vigil is being organized by Angela DeVito of South Jamesport, who has organized community vigils in the past, following the mass murders in a Charleston church in 2015 and in an Orlando nightclub last year.
The vigil will be conducted in the same format as the others.
“People will come together for a peaceful vigil. We’re going to open with a prayer and we’ll ask people to step forward and share their thoughts,” DeVito said. “We’re asking people to bring candles. Maybe there will be singing.”
DeVito said the purpose is to stand “together to say we can’t be a nation divided like this any more. We can’t condone killing people.”
DeVito is a member of the Riverhead Anti-Bias Task Force, but this event is not a task force event.
“I waited for the Anti-Bias Task Force do something, to ask us to come together to do something, but I never heard anything,” she said.
Anti-Bias Task Force co-chairperson Connie Lassandro told RiverheadLOCAL in an interview Monday the ABTF plans to hold a prayer service at the United Methodist Sept. 13. Details were still being finalized, Lassandro said.
DeVito said yesterday she had not heard anything about that. Lassandro sent an email to task force members asking for input on what to do, but there had been no further communication, according to DeVito.
The Anti-Bias Task Force “suspended meetings for July and August,” Lassandro said.
Lassandro decided to have a service inside a church “rather than do something in the park and have to worry about weather,” she said.
“I really don’t want to invite those that are going to be rebels,” Lassandro said. “I figure in the church we’re safer. I don’t want it to turn into a demonstration or anything like that.”
DeVito said yesterday she believes its important for the gathering to be held outdoors in a public space.
“Who would turn it into a huge demonstration?” she asked. “I don’t see that fear. I look at the state of things in our country and we have to reach out, we have to stand up together unity against hate.”
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