The stories are almost too much to bear.
“We lost a girl on the color guard,” says Alyssa Kramer, a 16-year-old junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. “All she did was go to school that day and we didn’t get to see her go home.”
The message now for the Parkland community is that don’t have to bear it alone.
Thursday’s prayer vigil at Parkridge Church was a chance for survivors and their supporters to reflect on what they’ve lost while embracing what they’ve gained - an entire community standing by their side.
Sara Florio, a 17-year-old student at Calvary Christian Academy, was at Parkridge Thursday in support of the school.
“It’ll take just take a lot of love, and if we love each other then we can try to prevent that from happening again.”
It’ll take lots of love, but some also say we need lots of action on the part of our policy makers as well.
For parents whose kids were just feet from death, they’re worried we’ll be stuck with the status quo.
“I think unless the two sides come together and come up with a real plan that enables those to have their guns and enable us to be safe from those guns… I don’t know if we can do that unless we become one group, one team, one entity,” one mom told NewsChannel 5.
It remains to be seen if that unity happens in Washington, D.C.
For now, unity is on full display in Parkland.
Neighbors are relying on neighbors, hoping one day things will change.