CHATHAM, Ill. – Signs in the village still declare “Chatham Strong” one year after the tragic deaths of four children and a teenage camp counselor at an afterschool program. Red ribbons that faded in the sunlight have been replaced by sign versions of the ribbon logo as the central Illinois community vows never to forget.
Now a 10-foot cross on the property of nearby Chatham Baptist Church is a permanent marker.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, because it wasn’t just the day or the week after the tragedy happened,” volunteer Dan Beazley told WCIA TV at a service where a memorial cross was placed outside Chatham Baptist Church. “This is still going on with you guys. You guys never forgot. When the cameras were turned off, this community stepped up at a level I’ve never seen before.”
It was on April 28, 2025, that a Jeep drove through the fenced play area at the YNOT center, then through the metal gymnasium. It was later determined that the driver had suffered a medical episode that caused her to steer into a freshly plowed cornfield and hit the building. She was cleared of criminal wrongdoing, although the families filed suit against the driver and the center almost a year later.
Chatham Church engaged the response starting on the afternoon of the tragedy. The church, just cross the street from the site, served as the reunification center. The other children attending the afterschool program were moved to the church, where parents were directed to find them. Pastor Ahron Cooney and others ministered to the shocked families.
“The church and deacons really stepped up to minister, and not just on the day it happened,” Cooney said. In the year since, Cooney said the church also reached out to the owners and staff of the YNOT center. “Our women’s ministry director led a Griefshare course, where some extended family members of victims participated.”
For Chatham church and Cooney, just four months into his senior pastorate at the time, the tragedy has proven to be a defining moment. “It’s helped me to remain more outward focused, more community focused,” Cooney said. “I think our church has done a better job since then of paying attention to the needs of the community. I’ve grown and the church has grown because of the need to minister.”
For the town, healing continues. Civic leaders joined church and community members at the service where the cross was placed permanently in the ground. A marker acknowledges the loss of Alma Buhnerkempe, 7; Kathryn Corley, 7; Ainsley Johnson, 8; Bradley Lund, 8; and counselor Rylee Britton, 18.
“People are welcome to come, to leave flowers, to pray,” Cooney said.
Beazley, from Michigan, delivers crosses to the sites of mass tragedies and natural disasters. He was on scene a year ago and returned for this event installing the 10-foot cross built by a local team. “Chatham is a beacon of light,” Beazley said outside the church, “not only in this area, not only in the state, but across the country.”
This article originally appeared in the Illinois Baptist.
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