(Seventeen lives were lost and countless others changed 6 months ago, the day of a tragic massacre at Marjory Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida. Photo via Wikimedia Commons)
Six months ago today, on Valentine’s Day, is when the community of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida — and the nation — changed forever when a mass shooter took the lives of 17 students and teachers.
Immediately, impassioned leaders emerged from MSD, re-energizing the national conversation around gun violence and gun laws, using their pain and loss to try to spark change. Some have even become household names.
Their movement, often called #NeverAgain, held the huge March For Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C. and dozens of other cities around the country and world in March, and then took their messages on the road this summer in the Road to Change bus tour.
The movement’s focus now is on registering young people to vote and then getting them to the polls in the hopes of changing government enough to change gun laws.
Tomorrow a new school year starts at MSD. Today, here’s what some of the Parkland survivors are saying on social media to mark the six month anniversary of the day that shattered, and changed, their lives.
Some are sharing how haunted they are by what happened that day, with the 17 lost on their minds and in their hearts.
There’s some gratitude amid the mourning.
Others are posting in honor of the ones they lost — a friend, a coach, a daughter.
And others are posting today about both remembrance and effecting change.