A trio of Miniature Horses from Florida will begin the new year in Newtown, Conn., helping residents of that town heal after a gunman took the lives of more than two dozen children and adults at an elementary school there.

On Dec. 14, 20-year-old Adam Lanza entered the Sandy Hook Elementary School and shot 20 children and six of the school’s adult staff members to death. Lanza then took his own life with a fatal gunshot to the head.

Shortly thereafter, individuals and families began contacting the nonprofit Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses, a Gainesville, Fla.-based organization whose Miniature Horses bring equine therapy to hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, and schools, said Debbie Garcia-Bengochea, the organization’s education director.

"We’d had many calls from individuals and families," Garcia-Bengochea said. "Then city administrators invited us to come and we accepted