The Wendt Center has worked with thousands of families over the years, including Qiana Wright’s. Her infant daughter and brother were killed two years apart.
WASHINGTON — it’s been a battle to smile again from the inside for Qiana Wright. Her infant daughter and brother were killed within two years of each other.
“I smile, because they’re smiling in the pictures, but my heart breaks,” she said.
Her nine-month-old daughter, Savannah, was killed in 2015 through alleged child neglect at daycare.
Two years later, her brother, Brian was shot to death after a workplace dispute in DC.
“My heart breaks every time I walk past this, but they’re smiling at me, and I’m smiling right back at them,” Wright said, gesturing toward a memorial she created for the two in her living room. “Just with me sitting, talking to you now shows that progress was made.”
Her three other kids weren’t quite ready to talk, but they have been opening up to the Wendt Center for Healing and Loss in DC.
The executive director of the group says they help people heal from life’s worst moments.
“The walls of this center are full of heartbreaking stories from kids who have been exposed to and experience things that just, you can’t imagine that kids get exposed to and experience,” Executive Director, Michelle Palmer said. “And it is almost always related to gun violence.”
Palmer said they give kids tools to address that trauma.