On the corner of the Farmingdale State College campus on April 23, nearly 200 people gathered on campus outside Orchard Hall for a candlelit vigil remembering the fallen Hokies of Virginia Tech. Tears fell for those whose lives were brutally ended as a candle and a white rose were dedicated to each.

The event was sponsored by the Rambler, the student newspaper of Farmingdale State College and managed under auspices of the Professional Communications Department. Key organizers were editor Victor Atlasman and event organizer Xio Mara, who invited special guest and Virginia Tech 2002 alumna Dana DiDonato of WBLI's Morning Show to the ceremony.

A brief moment of silence was taken before special guest Dana DiDonato of WBLI took the podium to speak, along with her husband, Kevin, also a VT alumnus. Although Dana talks on the radio for a living, she said that her mind goes blank whenever she is asked to speak of the massacre. Her emotions welling up, she expressed her extreme gratitude towards Farmingdale State College.

"There was candle lighting on the Drill Field, which is the center of campus at Virginia Tech," she said. "All of my friends went and I wanted to go so badly, but unfortunately I was unable to. So it means so much to me that a local school would invite me down here and do something like this. It's just so beautiful. I told Virginia Tech about this gathering and they were so moved by your sympathy and empathy."

Kevin DiDonato recalled taking a class with one of the professors killed during the shooting.

"To know that something like this could happen at anytime anywhere is scary," he said to the crowd.

Tables covered with white linens formed a ring around those in vigil with shiny photographs of the victims eerily reflecting Adventureland's lights. The student's faces in the photos looked a lot like the students gathered in their honor. Several Farmingdale students came to the podium to share prayers and thoughtful words of faith and optimism in tribute as students wept kneeling down, holding one another.

One by one, names were read as a candle was lit and a white carnation placed beside it for each of the deceased. Around the circles, surrounded in darkness of night, red plastic Dixie cups glowed with candlelight from within.

The vigil ended with students embracing one another while the lyrics of a song written by Dana's Virginia Tech friends Jason Jolly, Josh Kim and Kurtis Parks, Forever Changed asked, "Where do we go from here? Can we overcome this fear? God send your mercy this way, for we are all Hokies today."

The Rambler editors said they felt better for having done something to honor fellow students lost during the recent tragedy in Virginia Tech while helping Farmingdale students and Long Islanders cope with the pain opened by this wound.