Friends, teachers hold prayer service for young Wilmington girl

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A Wilmington community is grieving and remembering a little girl.

St. Mark Catholic School held a prayer service for one of its students Friday night. Twelve-year-old Bonnie Sanders Burney died Thursday in a zip line accident at Camp Cheerio in Allegheny County.

Principal Mary Meyers says they know her as Sanders, and she had been at the school for the past two years. Friday night, this school family began its own healing process together.

The strings of a harp played in the background. Pictures sat in front.

“Her smile was just so vibrant you had to smile back,” Sanders’s friend Mary Catherine Farris said.

Sanders’s favorite color and candy filled the church.

“Sanders loved candy,” Myers said. “Wherever she was, she had candy. Sanders had candy in her closets, in her locker.”

Myers says that is how they will remember Sanders.

“Sanders is a very special child in my heart and in the hearts of many,” Myers said.

A special child that Myers did not expect to lose so soon.

“I remember feeling like I was in shock,” Myers said about learning of Sanders’s death.

Myers says it was a devastating moment for their entire school.

“Not only was it a child at St. Mark, but it was Sanders,” Myers said.

That is why they filled Sanders’s prayer service with memories.

“We felt that it was important for the families to gather together to grieve together,” Myers said.

She says Sanders touched the lives of everyone she met.

“She’s the kind of girl that was unforgettable,” Farris said. “She was who we strive to be like.”

Farris grew up with Sanders and looked up to Sanders.

“Even though she was younger than me, I’ve always looked up to her,” Farris said.

Farris says that doesn’t end here.

“I’ll definitely try to be happier and just make everyone else happy, just like she did,” Farris said.

That’s how she wants everyone else to remember Sanders Burney.

“I don’t want her to be remembered as the girl who got hurt at Camp Cheerio,” Farris said. “I want her to be remembered as the girl with the amazing smile.”

Meyers says they will have a memorial service for Sanders later this month and she says they are also thinking about creating a scholarship in her memory.