Group known as Eagle's Haven works to lift Parkland, Uvalde in wake of mass school shootings
FORT LAUDERDALE -- The cities of Parkland and Uvalde have forged a special partnership out of tragedy since both communities know the pain from mass shootings at their public schools.
That's why the Children's Service Center of Broward County sent a group of trauma and grief specialists to Texas this month to help the Uvalde community prepare for the start of this new school year and plan for the years ahead.
Eagle's Haven is an organization created to help Parkland and Broward County residents cope with the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, where a gunman took 17 lives on Valentines Day in 2018.
"The Children's Services Council of Broward County, they approached the Jewish Adoption and Family Care Options to create Eagles' Haven after the shooting," said Michelle Michelin, assistant director of Eagle's Haven. "They came together with parents in the community, those impacted and expressed the need for something different than a traditional therapy center, but some more that the community could come and heal and come together and build relationships."
Eagles' Haven worked with the state attorney's office to secure three rooms on the same floor the trial for convicted gunman Nikolas Cruz occurred.
"We were able to outfit and decorate to really look like many eagles' havens," Michelin said. "Just help them to find a place to relax in between after or even during the trial, and so it was a place that really ended up being really needed for them."
Four years later on May 24, 2022, another school shooter took the lives of 21 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
"I think for Uvalde, they needed to hear that there is some hope that we are five years out," Eagles' Haven Director Rebecca Jarquin said.
No one will tell you the community is healed five years out.
"We're seeing a lot of the students that were in the building that have gone away to college, that are not managing," Jarquin said.
But the Children's Bereavement Center of South Texas said baby steps go a long way, and they welcomed the help.
"It actually was amazing the way the (Uvalde) community mobilized, the way so many nonprofit agencies and medical people came together," said Marian Sokul of the Children's Bereavement Center of South Texas. "But in the aftermath, when a lot of those people go away, it's where do we start from here, and I think with Parkland, to know that they were speaking to us five years later and they were able to tell us it does get better and there is a level of trust."
Eagle's Haven helped them open their local center in Uvalde.
"When someone comes in and not just says, 'Call me if you need help,'" Sokul said. "But someone calls you and says, 'We're coming because we think it might help,' that was really a gift."
The timing of their visit is key here too.
Eagle's Haven officials said they were invited for the opening of the children's center in Uvalde and helped prepare for the one year anniversary from afar, but they felt the best time to physically go help the community was right before the start of the new school year.
"Having Rebecca and Melissa from Eagle's Haven be able to speak with the teachers and say, 'We've seen this before, and here's how we faced it', and reminding them that we're still early in, we're still early in the game," Sokul said.
