Not for Profit Wants to Provide ‘Sanctuary of Hope Dedicated to the Lives Affected and Taken by the Tragedy in Orlando’
The onePULSE Foundation has filed paperwork with the state of Florida indicating plans for a “permanent memorial on the existing Pulse site in Orlando,†the Orlando Sentinel reports.
The filing by the non-profit formed on July 7 by the owners of Pulse Nightclub comes just over a month after the country’s deadliest mass shooting and anti-LGBT hate crime, and the worst terror attack since 9/11. Days after the attack that left 49 people dead and 53 others injured, a spokeswoman for Pulse owner Barbara Poma told the Sentinel that “anything we would ever do would include a memorial. We are still working through our grief.â€
The foundation’s site says that its “initial focused mission is to provide financial assistance to the victims affected by the attack at Pulse Nightclub,†and continues that it will “contribute to the creation of a permanent memorial at the existing site,” and provide “a sanctuary of hope dedicated to the lives affected and taken by the tragedy in Orlando.”
As visitors from across the nation continue to visit the site of the attack to pay their respects, including Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the front of the Pulse nightclub has been showered with candles, flowers, rainbow flags, cards, signs, notes and other tributes to the victims of the massacre.
Poma started the nightclub in 2004. It “was named Pulse in honor of Poma’s brother John, who died of AIDS in 1991 — ‘where he is kept alive in the eyes of his friends and family” according the club’s website, as it was before the shooting,” the Sentinel reports.
WKMG ClickOrlando has reported that the Orange County Regional History Center has already begun their efforts to collect and preserve the items found at the site, and that according to the museum’s manager, the “items will continue to be collected as long as people leave them.â€Â
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Image by Dannel Malloy via Flickr and a CC license