A couple of emotionally shaken teachers walked into Jim Longcor's Millard grocery store after Wednesday's shooting and asked for help.
The teachers wondered if Longcor could pitch in with some beverages for teachers and staff who were meeting that night in the aftermath of the Millard South shooting.
“You could tell there was a huge amount of concern on their faces,” said Longcor, who is store director for the SuperSaver grocery at 144th Street and Stony Brook Boulevard.
Longcor assured them he would take care of it.
Before long, cases of soft drinks, snacks and fruit-and-veggie trays — enough to feed 250 people — were on their way to the school, personally delivered by the grocery store's managers.
From across Omaha and the country, people moved by the tragedy have showered the Millard Public Schools with well-wishes and offers of assistance, a silver lining to the dark cloud that settled on the school this week, said Gary Steiner, executive director of the Millard Public Schools Foundation.
“It's an outpouring of people who want to help,” Steiner said.
So touched are they by the shooting of Principal Curtis Case and Assistant Principal Vicki Kaspar that their offers of money flooded the district and helped prompt her family to create a scholarship fund to accept those donations.
About half the students at South's sibling school, Millard North High School, whose school colors are blue, wore Millard South red Friday, said North Principal Brian Begley.
Students, teachers, administrators and the school police officer ignored the cold and posed for a picture by the Millard North electronic message board, which displayed the message: “We're all Patriots today.”
Begley e-mailed it to South, with a note:
“We hope this brightens your day a bit. You are all in our thoughts and prayers.”
Half a dozen former Millard teachers showed up at the high school, unsolicited, Friday morning and stood in the lobby greeting students as they returned.
A steady stream of florist delivery vehicles filled the administration building and school with fresh flowers. Some of the arrangements were gathered up and driven over to the hospital to brighten up Case's room, said school district spokeswoman Amy Friedman.
Florist Sasha Sporcic at Blossoms & Blooms in Millard said well-wishers are buying small colorful bouquets, balloons, Beanie Babies, peace lilies and items in the Millard South Patriots colors.
“I'm glad to see the community pull together like this,” Sporcic said. “It's so neat that everyone's thinking about each other.”
Some of the responses have come from other communities that had school shootings.
Counselors from the Goddard Public Schools in Kansas, which suffered a shooting in 1985, sent an arrangement of flowers to the counselors at Millard South. A Goddard student shot and killed a principal and injured two teachers and a student.
The Goddard counselors wrote: “Our hearts and prayers are with you and the whole South community.”
The Goddard counselors had visited Millard South in 2005 to learn about Millard's counseling program.
“We remember those people and their warmth and compassion and willingness to share with us,” said Steve Sandall, chairman of the Goddard High School counseling department.
The principal of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., which suffered the worst school shooting in U.S. history in 1999, also reached out to Omaha.
Frank DeAngelis, who was principal when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attacked Columbine High, heard about Millard South and reached out to Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle and Millard Superintendent Keith Lutz.
DeAngelis, who spoke on the phone with Suttle, said he just wanted to let them know he's available in case they want to bounce some things off him.
Unfortunately, he said, Millard South has joined “an exclusive club.”
One remarkable thing happened as students returned to the school for classes Friday, according to Assistant Principal Heidi Weaver.
Staff members had been prepared in advance to be ready to help returning students cope, Friedman said.
Weaver observed, however, that in many cases the students were comforting the teachers, she said.
“The roles were reversed,” she said.
Friedman said the community's response has been “incredible.”
“It really has helped us heal,” she said.
Contact the writer: 402-444-1077, joe.dejka@owh.com
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