Hamden healing garden to honor 15-year-old fatally shot while walking home from school

HAMDEN, Conn. (WTNH) – A Hamden nonprofit is working to create a one-stop shop for people whose lives have been affected by violence.

Eli’s Garden of Healing will honor the life of a 15-year-old boy who was shot and killed while walking home from school in Hamden.

The healing garden is planned in an area that was previously used to test military machine guns.

Elijah Gomez was walking home from Hamden High School last year, just days after his 15th birthday when he was shot and killed.

His family now plans to plant his memory in a part of the road that he never did, not only for his complaint but for the whole community.

“The police identified him through the work in his bag,” said Crystal Cathcart, the victim’s aunt.

Nearly 20 months after Gomez’s murder, Cathcart said it’s still hard to put into words the day she lost her grandson.

“It just breaks my heart to think about it. He was just a kid walking home,” Cathcart said.

Grief returned to the motivation not only to create something to honor the memory of the Hamden student athlete, but also to do something through the character of Eli, helping others.

“We started thinking about his love of nature and he really cared about his friends and wanted to take care of everyone around him and the concept of a healing garden made a lot of sense,” Cathcart said.

Eli’s family plans to build the healing garden in DeNicola Park on top of an abandoned shooting range. The hollow, concrete structure hidden by leaves and tree branches was used to test Winchester machine guns during World War II.

A family destroyed by gun violence is now thought to give space the opposite purpose.

“This thing that was made to harm and have weapons that will kill people to turn that into a place of healing and hope makes a lot of sense,” Cathcart said.

Cathcart is the president of the non-profit Eli’s Garden of Healing.

She said the organization is going through several tests including remediation, structural engineering, tree tests and is applying for grants to cover most of the $2 million project price.

Once completed, Cathcart envisions a safe nurturing place for people who have been affected by all kinds of violence, including survivor group meetings, yoga and art therapy. She said that Eli loved being in nature in the outdoors and that it is something that helps her continue to connect with him and soon to a larger healing community.

“When you go into nature it’s really calming and refreshing and healing and if you think about the violence and the impact it has on you, you warm up inside, your heart starts to race and just going into the woods that energy fresh has an immediate effect on you,” said Cathcart.

Eli’s Garden of Healing hopes that this project will be well under construction by 2025, the same year that Elijah was supposed to graduate high school.