Stoneman Douglas Students Welcomed To Colorado
DENVER (CBS4)- Students from Jefferson County welcomed the first students to arrive from Parkland, Florida on Wednesday.
The students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School traveled to Colorado to help prepare for the somber anniversary of another school shooting- Columbine High School.
The deadly shooting at Columbine happened on April 20 nearly 19 years ago. Thirteen students and one teachers were killed, along with the gunmen.
Seventeen people were killed and seventeen more were wounded on Feb. 14 at Stoneman Douglas High, making it one of the world's deadliest school massacres.
They traveled to Colorado to learn how to cope in the aftermath and arrived at Denver International Airport on Wednesday morning.
A group of students from Jefferson County raised enough money to fly 60 of those students to Colorado days before the Columbine anniversary.
Families in Jefferson County opened their homes to the students from Florida. Many have plans to meet with survivors of Columbine who say with the right support, healing can happen.
"I'm just excited for them to see that it does get better. Although they are at the beginning of their healing process, our community is 19 years down the road," said Emmy Adams, Vote for Our Lives Director.
"I hope to find people that went through the same thing that we went through and share their thoughts and talk about it, maybe even share tips like how to get over it, how they got over it. Tips that we can reuse, kind of," said Stoneman Douglas student Anne Viola Marchal.
Those students will join others in Jefferson County for the Vote for Our Lives rally on Thursday. Their message is to encourage students to register to vote and join the effort to end gun violence.