In the hours after the Aug. 27 mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School killed two children and injured dozens more, a south Minneapolis family opened their home, creating an impromptu gathering place for grieving parents and children.
Kristen Neville and Michael Burt, members of the parish and school community, returned home with their five children after the attack. Within hours, the couple began reaching out to other parish families, according to a Dec. 30 story from Minnesota Public Radio News.
“People just needed to be together,” Burt told MPR News. “We didn’t have a plan, but we knew isolation wasn’t the answer.”
Text messages spread quickly through the Annunciation community, and families began arriving at the couple’s home that same evening. Burt contacted a nearby restaurant to prepare food and called Hennepin County to request counselors, turning the house into what he described as a temporary triage space.
MPR reported that between 50 and 100 people gathered there within hours of the shooting, as parents tried to comfort children and process what had happened.
Neville and Burt were already active parish leaders before the shooting. Burt serves on the church’s finance council, and the couple co-chair one of the school’s largest annual fundraisers. After the attack, their involvement expanded as parents began organizing around mutual support and long-term recovery.
“Parents kept reaching out, saying they felt like they needed to do something,” Neville told MPR. “It started small and then grew very fast.”
That effort has since become a parent coalition of more than 150 families, according to MPR. The group meets regularly to support one another and to discuss how to speak with children about violence and fear. Members have also connected with parents from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where 26 people were killed in a 2012 shooting.
Burt, a self-described entrepreneur, began focusing early on how the Annunciation community could sustain itself over time. He told MPR that planning for long-term recovery was essential to preventing division.
According to MPR, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime contacted Annunciation leaders within a week of the shooting and helped establish a resilience center to provide counseling and support. A temporary external center now operates weekly at the Washburn Library, while an internal planning group addresses ongoing needs within the parish and school.
Burt serves on that internal committee, which includes school administrators, clergy, parents and alumni.
“The conversations are difficult,” he told Minnesota Now. “The goal is to hold people together through them.”
As recovery efforts continue, the couple have also focused on restoring moments of joy.
“We’re reminded constantly that joy still matters,” Burt told Minnesota Now. “That’s part of healing.”
For Neville, the work has become inseparable from her role as a mother.
“To someday be able to look my kids in the eyes and tell them they’re safe again,” she told Minnesota Now, “that’s what all of this is for.”
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