Students at Maryland’s Bethesda Chevy Chase High School displayed 671 white T-shirts bearing the names of teenagers killed nationally by gun violence last year.During the NCAA women's basketball tournament on Friday, ESPN sports announcers interrupted the broadcast on two different occasions to protest Florida's Parental Rights in Education bill and other bills like it across the country. “We turn away from the dread and have to look more toward who’s helping us,” he said. Senior Jack Pendleton helped plan the day’s anniversary activities. But in a sign of the times, an active shooter drill was also held. “I think all the days are hard, but today is bringing back memories of everything that happened,” she said.Įlsewhere around the country, at Broadman High in Youngstown, Ohio, the school rang a chime 17 times and honored local first responders. Ilise Bogart, whose daughter was in one of the classrooms that were attacked, said it had been a difficult year. “It felt sad, but it also felt nice to be honoring her and knowing that everyone there was thinking of everyone that died,” she said. She said she had written notes to her friend and to some of the other victims at another park earlier in the day. More than a thousand people gathered in the evening at Pine Trails Park, about a mile from the school, for an interfaith service that opened with a video highlighting dozens of service projects launched in honor of the victims, including plantings at a beach to halt erosion, a campaign to help abandoned animals and the remodeling of a dance studio.Īmong those gathered was Sydney Mills, 13, who used to dance with shooting victim Jamie Guttenberg. “It wasn’t Cupid shooting arrows of love - it was an AR-15.” “My mind runs each and every route that could have saved your life,” she read tearfully.

They brought a life-size statue of Oliver, who was 17. Victim Joaquin Oliver’s girlfriend, senior Tori Gonzalez, organized a group of a dozen students and alumni to read poems to a large crowd outside the school in the late afternoon. “The last time I saw you alive,” wrote Alhadeff, who was elected to the Broward County school board after the shooting on a platform pushing campus safety. They told each other, “I love you,” and Alhadeff watched Alyssa walk away in a black and white dress and white sneakers: “Your long, dark hair dangled. But when she dropped her daughter off, she put a pair of diamond earrings in Alyssa’s ears and gave her a chocolate bar to make her smile. Alhadeff remembered how Alyssa didn’t want to go to school because she didn’t have a valentine. Lori Alhadeff posted an open letter to her 14-year-old daughter Alyssa, who died in the shooting. Victims’ families said they would spend the day quietly, visiting their loved ones’ graves or participating in low-key events like a community walk. Sophomore Julia Brighton, who suffered nightmares for months after the gunman killed three people in her classroom, placed flowers at the memorial outdoors instead of going inside and “putting myself through that.” An interfaith service occurred later in the day at a nearby park.įreshman Jayden Jaus, 14, said the moment of silence was “a bit emotional and a little intense” as the principal read the victims’ names over the public address system. Grief counselors and therapy dogs were made available along with massages and pedicures.

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