Destination 2017: OrlandoBy Helen Anne Travis

The global outpouring of support was profound for Orlando’s whole population, says Jeff Prystajko, director of marketing and communications for Orlando’s Come Out With Pride festival and volunteer board member of MBA Orlando, central Florida’s LGBTQ chamber of commerce. He compares it to the 1973 arson at the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans, an event that until a year ago was the largest mass killing in the LGBTQ community: 32 people died. But instead of hosting memorials, local New Orleans churches refused the victims’ remains. People said things about the deceased that were hard enough to read, let alone reprint.“How times have changed,” says Prystajko. “We needed help, and the world responded with kindness and love. It can’t bring back loved ones; it can’t change things. But knowing there’s that support and love around the world has eased some of the pain.“The love for Orlando didn’t just pour in; it sprung up from within. People in the city’s LGBTQ community will tell you Orlando has been an especially welcoming place since Patty Sheehan, the first openly gay elected official in central Florida, joined the city council in 2000. A few years later, the city’s pride festival started with a short parade around downtown. Today, it’s one of the largest in the state.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage in October 2014, Orlando mayor Buddy Dyer performed a mass wedding for 44 gay couples in front of city hall on January 6, 2015—the very first day it was legal for him to do so. It was “the coolest thing I’ve done,” Dyer says now, smiling but serious too. But everything changed last June. “After Pulse it seemed like the whole city banded together to support the LGBTQ community,” says Russ Kasim, who serves on the board of the Orlando Youth Alliance, a nonprofit that aids local LGBTQ youth.

You can see that support in the rainbow flags—the six colors representing LGBTQ pride—which you’ll find everywhere from the Lake Eola bandshell to the Orlando City SC Stadium. They fly from flagpoles and apartment windows next to signs proclaiming, “We are Orlando,” “Love Wins” and “Orlando United,” which became the mantra to honor the victims. “Orlando said, ‘This is Orlando’s issue,’” emphasizes Persis. “It wasn’t just a gay issue or a Hispanic issue.”

Anyone familiar with the world of nonprofits might not be surprised to hear that before Pulse, Orlando’s Hispanic and LGBTQ community groups had worked in their own silos. Sometimes they duplicated efforts. Sometimes they competed for funding. But four days after the shooting, representatives from the city’s existing LGBTQ service organizations huddled around the conference tables at the National Entrepreneur Center just a few miles from the nightclub to discuss how they could work together to help survivors, victims and their families.

“It sounds pretty simple. By the end of the day we had 18 organizations all committing to communicate and collaborate in a way they never had before,” says Jennifer Foster, cofounder of the One Orlando Alliance, the committee formed from that meeting. “It was miraculous.”

Today the One Orlando Alliance includes more than 30 community service providers attempting to address the needs of all who were affected that night. How do those who are not U.S. citizens get the mental healthcare they need? How does someone who works part time at a theme park pay rent while a loved one is in the hospital?

While everyone in the group is quick to admit they have a long way to go, they pride themselves on creating a more inclusive Orlando. “For a small city, for us to be figuring all of this out in the span of a year is a huge win,” says Alliance cofounder Carlos Carbonell. City and county officials declared June 12, 2017, the one-year anniversary of the massacre, Orlando United Day, billing it as a “day of love and kindness.” There were several dozen community service events going on throughout the city. Many companies gave employees the day off to help package meals for the hungry, host school supply drives and paint homes.

At the memorial, Sondra Valentino, AKA Sondra Rae, is broadcasting live for XL106.7. It’s an emotional day, she says. She met her wife at Pulse six years ago over a few rounds of the club’s famous Blue Long Island Iced Teas. For her and many others in Orlando, Pulse was a safe zone. It didn’t matter whether you were gay or straight or figuring things out. You could go there and be yourself, she says.

“It was a place where anyone could go, feel welcomed and not care about anything outside the club’s doors.”

For now, those doors are locked. In some ways though, the safe zone Pulse represented has grown. Valentino sees it in the rainbow lights over State Road 408, the outpouring of support from local politicians and the notes she’s received at the station since the attack. Parents write in to say they’re more understanding of their gay son after seeing the community’s response to Pulse. They thank her for always speaking so openly about her relationship with her wife. Valentino watches as two strangers embrace. “Before, Orlando was just a city,” she says. “Now we are a family.”