Parkland families encouraged by progress of public memorial for victims

Six years later, there is a small memorial on the campus of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. There is a lovely tribute garden at the corner of the school grounds. There is, however, no public memorial to the 17 people murdered on Feb. 14, 2018.

That’s changing, as construction crews are currently building the foundation for a future memorial on donated land along the Parkland-Coral Springs border, next door to the Marriott Heron Bay Resort. 

If ever there was a need for a memorial, it’s now, it’s here, for this community.

“Children all had great futures, they were all great kids, the staff members what were taken, they were coaches, they gave of themselves to the community and their students, we need to find a fitting way to remember who they were before they were taken from us,” said Tony Montalto, whose daughter, Gina, was among the murdered.

The athletic director at Douglas, Chris Hixon, was killed trying to stop the gunman.

“That hole that Chris left hasn’t been filled and won’t ever be filled so it’s just as difficult today as it was on February 14th,” said his widow, Debbi Hixon.

The pain never leaves.

“No, the pain will never leave, the emptiness, it’s always there, the memories,” said Manuel Oliver, who misses his son, Joaquin, every day.

The memorial will eventually celebrate the memories of all those who are gone. A committee is evaluating the architectural drawings of six proposals and will choose one of them. Their progress is visible at Parkland17.org.

“It was really important for us for it to be interactive, because all of those 17 people were vibrant people who gave so much to the community, who loved life, so we want a memorial to reflect that, not just somber,” Hixon said.

“It’s beautiful, they’re all really beautiful and so much love went into creating the renderings of the memorials, and at the end of the day, I just want a place to go to reflect, remember Alyssa,” said Lori Alhadeff.

After her daughter’s death, Alhadeff joined Hixon in being elected to the Broward County School Board, determined to make sure that memorials to school shooting victims were never again needed in Broward County.

So are schools safer now than they were six years ago?

“Absolutely,” Alhadeff answered. “We are now making sure that behavioral threat assessments are being done with fidelity, there are so many different layers of school safety protection that have been implemented since the tragedy on Valentine’s six years ago.”

So there has been progress on many fronts over the past six years. There is also symbolism in the chosen location for the memorial. It is just across a parking lot from the Marriot’s conference rooms. That’s where the families of the missing gathered on the night of the shooting, and that’s where they received the devastating news that their loved ones were never coming home.