Bringing Good From the Newtown Tragedy

“The governor came and said, ‘If you’re missing someone, they didn’t survive,'” Jaqueline Barden told FRONTLINE and the Hartford Courant in last month’s report Newtown Divided. That was how she found out her 7-year-old son Daniel had been killed in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Today, the Courant continues the Barden family’s story, exploring how they are coping with loss and focusing on the future.

“We feel like we have to make some good of this,” Jaqueline told the Courant. “He was such a kind little soul. … We feel we do have to spread that.”

Those efforts have included creating a Facebook page, “What Would Daniel Do?” to encourage acts of compassion in memory of Daniel. The page already has 16,000 likes and people from across the country have shared stories there about acts of kindess.

One woman in Illinois, for example, posted about how she paid for a stranger’s meal, leaving the message, “Love from Daniel Barden” on the bill.

Read more about Daniel and what else the Bardens are doing to promote Daniel’s compassion in the Courant‘s story.