Donovan Catholic Students Set Prayer Service For National Walkout

TOMS RIVER, NJ — While their peers across the country walk out of their high schools across the country, students at Donovan Catholic High School in Toms River will be supporting them, albeit in a different manner.

The student body of the private school will gather for a "Prayer for Peace and Healing" service on Wednesday, March 14, at the same time as student walkouts are expected to occur to mark the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting that killed 17 students and staff members and injured 16 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

The Donovan Catholic service, set for 10 a.m., was created by the executive board of the Donovan Catholic Student Council and its National Honor Society, the school said in a news release.

Donovan Catholic student leaders and Father Scott Shaffer, the school's director and head of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, "will lead the Donovan community in prayers for the victims, and all who mourn their loss, as well as prayers for guidance as we continue to seek a way to live in peace with one another," the news release said.

The national school walkout aims to keep up the pressure on lawmakers, state and federal, for stricter firearms laws as well as to honor the memories of the victims of the shooting.

The call for walkouts, which started not long after the shootings on Feb. 14, has put school administrators in a difficult situation of trying to balance the First Amendment rights to speak out against the gun protection rights in the Second Amendment.

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