Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content.
Dr. Tracy Wharton is a social work faculty member at the University of Central Florida and a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Florida and Alabama. After the Pulse shooting Dr. Wharton was involved in organizing and providing volunteer counseling for survivors and victims families.
Tracy’s phone started pinging early, before the sun came up, the night of the shooting. The third time it pinged, she had to pick it up. Facebook had pinged with the mark yourself safe feature. Her sister left a message making sure she was OK. Other friends started to text. Her sister texted “Get up and turn on the TV.”
The Knights Clinic is literally around the corner from the club so she was familiar with Pulse. She had driven by it 100 times. All the residents at the hospital immediately went back to help. Faculty started texting one another.
By early morning she was in contact with social worker colleagues. They started to figure out how to plug in and organize to help. She knew families would be showing up. There would be people at the barricades. She went to the memorial that afternoon.
The next day she began work and it didn’t stop for weeks. There was a Google Doc spreadsheet that pointed out different places needing support. There were a few dozen names to start, 48 hours later there were 300 or so people, a week out there were 600 people on the sheet who wanted to volunteer time. There were about 13 different locations where social workers were needed and people would sign up for time slots.
A lot of people went to clubs to support patrons. Club owners wanted social workers there. Bartenders were feeling stressed out. She was called on to go to Southern Nights. There was a flamboyant sparkling fundraiser going on at the club. She let the bartender know she would be outside should anyone want to talk. It was too loud to talk inside.
Moms were waiting outside as well, sitting on the curb all night. There is something terrifying about the mindset at the time that moms felt the need to wait outside to make sure their kids came out alive. Police were on hand with wand metal detectors and they were great. But the moms felt the strong need to protect their children.
She realized that social workers would need some way to be identified. An artist donated the rainbow graphic and a local business donated pins. About 80 were created. She wanted to give pins to Spanish social workers who were working with victim’s families directly. When she showed the pins she was asked, “Do you have any in Spanish?” She hadn’t thought of it, so she decided to pay for another print run out of her own pocked to make it right.