CHUNKY — Hundreds gathered at Chunky Baptist Church Wednesday night to offer prayers for the families affected by Monday’s Halloween wagon-ride crash that killed three and injured seven. 

Volunteer firefighters, teachers, children on crutches, members of other churches, and retired members of the community gathered at the service.

Matt Pittman, pastor at Chunky Baptist, led the service alongside Lewis May, pastor of Chunky United Methodist Church. 

Family friend Stephanie Wright said an account has been set up for Terry and Linda Smith, grandparents to the children, at The Citizens Bank to receive donations. Donations were accepted at the service.  

Wright encouraged those unprepared to make a donation at the service to visit the Gofundme account, which had raised more $11,000 as of 9:30 p.m. Wednesday night. 

“I ask all of y’all to continue to pray for my friends,” said Wright. “It means so much to see so many faces here tonight.”

“This is not just Chunky Baptist Church or Chunky United Methodist Church,” said Pittman. “This is Chunky.”

May invited Angie Burks to pray for the families of the deceased.

“We’re all family here tonight,” said Burks. “You can turn on the news any day and hear about how this country is splitting apart. But tonight we come together as a community.”

Pittman offered a prayer specifically for Chase Cook, who drove the truck involved in the wagon-ride accident. 

“It could have been any of us that did not see what was in front of us,” said Pittman. “But when we go through these terrible times God is with us.”

Both pastors asked the community to support their neighbors in following the tragedy. 

“It is incumbent on us to act as the eyes, the ears, the hands and the feet that God will use as we minister to the families and as we minister to each other,” said May. 

After the prayer service, the audience gathered outside for a candlelight vigil for the victims and families. 

One by one, the candles went out. The crowd rushed forward to return the candles to the service leaders so the wax could be melted into a new candle and presented to the family.

“I just had to come,” said teacher Stacey Cook, no relation to the Cook family involved in the accident. “I’ve been praying for them since four this morning.”

Cook related an experience at school on Wednesday, when classmates of McKenzie Shaver’s visited her computer lab. After talking to their teacher, Cook decided not to discuss McKenzie or the other children injured. 

But the students brought it up, letting Cook know why McKenzie couldn’t be in class. After some discussion, Cook asked if they’d like to pray about it.

“I asked who’d like to pray,” Cook said. “Because I knew I would not be able to do it; I would cry.”

Cook, who taught all of the children involved in the accident at Newton County Elementary School, said seven different children volunteered to give prayers.

“And they were beautiful prayers. Just beautiful. They said ‘We know your mama’s looking down on you’ and ‘You’re going to be taken care of.’ “

Cook remembered that one of the children turned to her after the prayers and said, “We saw you cry, Ms. Cook.”

“They’re children. They take it as it comes. They’ll pray and then they’ll play and then they’ll pray and play,” Cook said. “I had to come for them.”