Parkland: Memoriales en la secundaria Stoneman Douglas se desmantelaron hoy para preservarlos
By Phillip Valys
| El Sentinel |
Mar 28, 2018 | 9:48 AM
Volunteers at Pine Trails Park in Parkland preserved memorials left for students and teachers killed in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
For the past month, a massive memorial of teddy bears, balloons and other loving tributes left for the 17 victims of the Parkland school shooting has sat along the fence outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
A team of volunteer conservators today will start disassembling the shrine, preserving the objects in climate-controlled rooms for a future public exhibit of the mementos on Feb. 14, 2019, the first anniversary of the massacre.
The race is on to preserve these memorials, said Parkland Historical Society president Jeff Schwartz, whose group is leading the salvaging effort. Many items are weather-damaged after a month exposed to sun and rain.
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"The initial goal is to get these items out of the weather and sun and into storage, and to do it as quickly as possible," Schwartz said.
Another imperative to preserve the memorials now: On Sunday, deputies arrested a couple for allegedly pilfering an assortment of teddy bears, plaques and pin wheels from the high school memorial.
Schwartz and volunteers also spent a day and a half this month dismantling a second memorial at nearly Pine Trails Park, which included about 1,500 items such as votive candles, handwritten notes, Stars of David and crucifixes for all 17 slain students and teachers.
This story will be updated. Check back for more information.