After 12-14 Shooting, He Had to Do Something to Help

Sam Mihailoff stops mid-sentence and looks out the window of Bagel Delight across Church Hill Road to Hawley School. He stares for a moment at the elementary school and then remarks briefly upon its history in Newtown before returning to our conversation.

A few months ago Sam says he might have never taken the time to appreciate the building, which dates back to 1921, or its connections to the town he has called home for the past 33 years.

“I never really had a love affair with the community until now,” the Sandy Hook resident says.

Something in Sam has changed. And it dates back to Dec. 14, 2012, when a shooting at a school in his neighborhood killed 20 children and six women.

He was angry. He was heartbroken. And he remembers thinking that he had to do something.

“Everyone wants to — has to — do something,” says Sam, the man behind the WE ARE NEWTOWN fundraising effort. “They’re not just going to be another statistic, at least with me.”

In the days following the shooting, thousands of people from around the country came to the small village of Sandy Hook in a show of solidarity and communal mourning. They prayed, cried and left notes, cards, stuffed animals and other symbols of comfort, peace and love. Thousands more from around the world sent in their condolences and donations, too.

Organizations and commissions were formed. Funds were set up. New laws were proposed and some, like the state’s expanded gun safety legislation, passed.

Vigils were held. Marches took place. Promises were made. And after everyone had left, Newtown and its residents remained — bound by their town pride, their new reality and their unwavering dedication to each other — and to the lives lost.

“I have no idea why I’m so impacted,” Sam says. “You know, I didn’t know any of the kids.”

He does now, though — their names, their ages, their hopes and dreams.

Like Noah Pozner, who wanted to own a taco factory. “He was the youngest. He had just turned six,” Sam says.

Or Ben Wheeler, who, it turns out, lived up the street from him.

Sam had seen Neil Heslin many times at Blue Colony Diner, but didn’t realize it until he saw him on TV in the days and weeks after the shooting talking about his son, Jesse Lewis, and advocating for stricter gun laws.

“It’s a small town,” Sam says of Newtown. “The kind where you know a lot of people, but not all by name.”

Sam, “The Trouble Maker”

Sam’s name is likely not unfamiliar to most Newtown residents. But, like he says, many people probably know his name but couldn’t match it with his face if they saw him in town.

That’s because they may know Sam only through his activity on Newtown Patch. He’s been a vocal commenter on town affairs since the site’s launch more than three years ago. And the Waterbury native says that may have earned him the title of “the trouble maker.”

While Sam has no children of his own, like any teacher will tell you, he says his children number in the hundreds.

He taught grades 4-to-8 in the music and special education department at Cider Mill School in Wilton for many years.

It was the prospect of job security that initially led Sam to a career in education, keeping in mind the World War II mentality: “You take care of your job, your job will take care of you.”

Ironically, Sam became a casualty of the economic downturn of the 1980s and was laid off, just two months after he purchased his home in Sandy Hook.

“It was the reality of teaching,” he says. “Eight years of teaching, a master’s degree, too experienced. Go away.”

Sam landed on his feet as a manager of an audio store, or, as he calls it, as a “stereo bum.”

He also tuned into a talent that he developed as a child — playing the violin.

“I’m very serious about it,” he says.

That’s an understatement coming from a man who has played for 57 of his 62 years. In college, he was a concert master and, later, he played with the Ridgefield Symphony and the Candlewood Theater, among others.

Sam also put his talents and experience to work in the Music Therapy Department at Southbury Regional Training School, a residential facility for the developmentally disabled.

Today, he plays four hours every day.

“I’m forcibly retired, so it’s either four hours a day or Jerry Springer,” he jokes.

‘WE ARE NEWTOWN’ Is Born

It was 3 a.m. on Dec. 17 when the idea of that “something” hit Sam.

He would design and sell bumper stickers to raise funds for 26 granite benches — one in memory of each victim — to adorn a garden at a to-be-built memorial in town.

Sam says the bumper sticker slogan, “WE ARE NEWTOWN,” was a spin off the movie, “We Are Marshall.”

“I’m pretty pragmatic, so I went to Town Hall and got the name trademarked on Monday, Dec. 17,” he says.

Since then, he has spent nearly every Saturday staked out at a commuter lot and Super Stop & Shop in town, selling the green bumper stickers that display in white letters, “WE ARE NEWTOWN.” He’s been spreading the word through a Facebook page and a blog on Patch.

“I’m not a marketer. I’m not a salesman,” he says. “You’re not buying the bumper sticker. It’s a fundraiser.”

After just over seven months, Sam is less than $2,000 shy of his goal. In addition to selling the bumper stickers, he’s utilizing PatchWorks to help collect the remaining funds, and there’s just five days to go. 

Check out his project page to see how you can help.

“To me, our bumper stickers are the most important thing in the world,” he says.

“I think this whole thing has been the therapy,” he says of the fundraising effort.

“This was a horrific, horrific thing. I may never be over it, and maybe that’s good, too.”