| April 9, 2024 – ORLANDO, FL – This update is meant to continue to further transparency around the City of Orlando’s development of a permanent memorial on the Pulse site and to keep the community updated on those efforts.
Stakeholder and Community Engagement
As Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer committed when the city purchased the Pulse site in late 2023, a priority is taking a collaborative approach to the development of the memorial to ensure that it honors the victims, survivors and all those impacted by the tragedy. Critical to this effort is engagement and outreach with the victims’ families and survivors.
To further this effort, the city has engaged Dr. Larry Schooler to implement a thoughtful, inclusive and efficient process for engaging and communicating with the victims’ families, the survivors and the community in the creation of a permanent memorial at the Pulse Nightclub site. Dr. Schooler has served as the lead facilitator on projects similar in nature to the Orlando United Pulse Memorial effort, including the Virginia Beach 5-31 Memorial Committee and the San Leandro Steven Taylor Sanctity of Life Pavilion project.
To ensure the development of the process, the engagement and outreach are culturally competent and serve the needs of stakeholders and the community, Dr. Schooler will provide a team that includes fluent Spanish speakers.
Work is estimated to take place over several phases and will involve interviews and outreach with key stakeholders and small focus group discussions, to help inform and shape recommendations for the development of the public and stakeholder engagement process for the memorial. Victims’ families and survivors can visit pulseorlando.org/interestform to indicate their interest in providing input throughout this process.
Input from this outreach and engagement will also inform a process for creating a working Memorial Advisory Committee with members representing the victims’ families, survivors and other stakeholders.
Throughout this engagement process, Dr. Schooler’s team will also provide liaison services between survivors and victims’ families to further ensure transparency, the building and maintenance of trust and that the process incorporates their wishes to honor loved ones and memorialize the impact the tragedy has had. Additionally, multiple opportunities for input before and during the memorial development process will be provided for families, survivors and the general public.
This process continues to advance the city’s goals of moving towards the selection of a conceptual design by the end of the year.
Annual Remembrance Ceremony and CommUNITY Rainbow Run
As announced in December 2023, in addition to leading the memorial process, the city has committed to ensuring the Annual Remembrance Ceremony and the CommUNITY Rainbow Run, both formerly organized by OnePulse, continue in 2024. Details on those events are as follows:
- The annual Pulse Remembrance Ceremony will be held at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. Doors will open at 6 p.m. and the program will begin at 7 p.m. The Remembrance Ceremony will be preceded by the ringing of the 49 bells at 4 p.m. at First United Methodist Church Orlando.
- Registration for the 8th Annual CommUNITY Rainbow Run, which will be held on Saturday, June 8, 2024, is now open. The 4.9k run will start and end at Wadeview Park, with the route passing by the Pulse site and Orlando Health. Net proceeds from the event will benefit the new Orlando United Pulse Memorial fund, a project within the City of Orlando’s existing 501(c)(3) nonprofit Strengthen Orlando, with the goal to construct a permanent memorial at the Pulse site, which was recently acquired by the City of Orlando. For more information or to register visit, orlando.gov/rainbowrun.
Continued Commitment
The city remains committed to the development of the permanent memorial at the Pulse site and doing it in a thoughtful, planned, transparent and timely manner. The city will continue to update the community as this work advances and there are more details to share.
Additionally, to further support this process and provide additional transparency, the City of Orlando has created a dedicated website at pulseorlando.org that holds historical records, information and updates about the Orlando United Pulse Memorial process, upcoming events, and opportunities to engage, including the interest form referenced above. |
