The following letter to local School District administrators and the community was received for publication by The Newtown Bee:

NHS Community,

Tasked with a daunting challenge this morning as I woke up since today is my last day at Newtown High School, the question was, “How does one express the fullness of joy and gratitude to an entire community as thoroughly as he has received the fullness of joy and gratitude from that community?”

When I came to Newtown and specifically NHS a little over a year ago, I was coming from a dark place, questioning everything about myself — my value, my worth, my experience, my quality as a person. The opportunity was to demonstrate to all of you what a caring athletic trainer and athletic training program was supposed to look like, to bring life and love to a place that desperately needed it through someone who desperately needed it. The only thing I could do was turn to the one who created life and love as that source.

Every day I would arrive early. Every day I would sit in my car for a time asking God to help me be a means of expressing His love to you and everyone with whom I would interact that day. I would walk into the room, whether it was the Athletic Training Room or the ISS Room and pray. I would pray as I would walk through the halls to and from wherever I had to go. For you who have wondered, this was my secret. God is as real and as close as you want Him to be, and will be the author and finisher of your faith if you allow Him. I allowed Him to use me to bring a sense of peace, stability and hope to everyone I encountered in the halls, in the rooms, and in the fields.

You as a community welcomed me. You accepted me. You allowed me to be that instrument of peace, hope and joy. Because of that, I was blessed by your peace, your hope, your joy. Never have I ever received so much from so many, even an article on the front page of the Sports Section of The Bee (what?!).

Newtown, I thank you. This past year has been amazing. Without hyperbole, there is not one moment I have come here with trepidation, anxiety or dread as if I were coming to merely work at a job. You have allowed me to express what little love I have coupled with the tremendous love of God in the area of my greatest passion — helping people. You have reciprocated in kind. I leave here a little sad.

I will dearly miss those with whom I have developed friendships. I will miss the students. I will miss the Newtown Community. Yet, I will leave here joyful, hopeful and fulfilled; now able to bring that sense, that experience, that community to a new environment that desperately needs it. For all of this I am eternally grateful. Newtown, and especially Newtown High School, you will always maintain a dear place in my heart.

Overwhelmingly grateful and yours truly,

John Juniet, LAT, ATC

Athletic Trainer — Newtown High School