2142018.
This is a number that doesn’t have a meaning, but when separated by either dashes or slashes, the meaning becomes clear.
2-14-2018. 2/14/2018.
February 14, 2018.
It means Valentine’s Day, or the day of love, but for Parkland, Fla., it is the day that Nikolas Cruz is accused of going to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and killing 17 people.
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Even though the city will be remembered for the tragedy, students from Florida are drawing inspiration from the strength that the survivors possess.
“I really think with them [the survivors] using their voices it’s really going to be a catalyst for change,” said Anna Zamora, student at Florida Atlantic University High School.
Zamora and her friends traveled to Washington D.C. to attend the March for Our Lives event and stayed with a host family from March for Our Lives Lodging. Families in the D.C. metro area partnered with the site to provide out-of-state students a place to sleep.
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The group of students traveled by car, plane and train without any parents or guardians, so that they could “be where the change will happen,” according to Danielle Klafter, 17, and Skylar Massella, 18.
“Watching Twitter after the Parkland shooting and seeing all the support and everything was insane,” said Massella. “I am just so proud of everyone my age.”
“We know that there is a problem,” said Klafter. “We all knew someone or had friends in the shooting.”
Like Klafter, Zamora is familiar with the impact that the shooting had on the people from the community.
“I live in Parkland and even though I don’t go to Douglas, I’ve had so many people say I am proud of you,” Zamora said. “We all are just empowered by the strength of the students. They are doing an amazing job at making noise.”
To hear more from Zamora on what it is like to be from Parkland listen to the audio clip below:
Students from across the country have responded to the “noise” by organizing their own school walk-outs and participating in local marches for gun control.
“That is amazing and that is going to do change,” said Klafter. “There are going to be haters that say we don’t know what we are doing. I’ll admit, we don’t know all the laws. We don’t know anything, but we do know there is a problem.”
For the students, the gun control march is just one step in bringing awareness to the issue.
“We are the mass shooting generation like everyone says,” said Massella, “and we are literally marching for our lives.”