Monticello-Brown Summit Elementary plans memorial bench for Gabe

A bench near the Monticello-Brown Summit Elementary playground will give students and parents a place to pause, remember Gabe and see the spot where he spent recess playing soccer with classmates.

The school community planned the memorial after Gabe died May 25. School officials described him as a devoted soccer player and fan who often joined friends for pickup games, making the playground a deeply personal place for the tribute rather than a memorial tucked away inside the building.

The bench project is expected to cost about $1,000, and Monticello-Brown Summit Elementary School and its parent-teacher organization are accepting donations to help pay for it. That shared fundraising effort reflects how small-school communities in Brown Summit often respond to loss: by pooling resources, choosing a visible location and creating something that students can return to every day.

Monticello-Brown Summit Elementary is a relatively small campus in Guilford County Schools, with about 302 students in grades PK-5, a student-teacher ratio of 13:1 and one full-time school counselor. The district serves more than 70,000 PK-12 students at 126 schools, but the size of this campus means Gabe’s death reached a close-knit circle of children, staff and families who knew one another well.

The school’s roots run deep in Brown Summit. The Monticello and Brown Summit schools were consolidated in 1987, and a new elementary building opened in January 2000 after the earlier school outgrew its space. That history helps explain why a memorial placed beside the playground carries such weight on this campus: for many families, the school has long been a shared gathering place, not just a classroom building.

School crisis experts say memorials can help students and staff work through grief when they are planned thoughtfully. In an elementary setting, that kind of visible remembrance can matter especially much, giving young children a concrete, age-appropriate way to understand loss while keeping Gabe present in the place where his classmates continue to play.

Monticello-Brown Summit Elementary is at 5006 N.C. Highway 150 E. in Browns Summit, and the school’s main phone number is 336-656-4010. In Brown Summit, the bench will stand as a simple but lasting marker of a child’s place in the school community.