Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It may contain sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.
Reverend Kathy Schmitz is from the First Unitarian Church. The church provided grief counseling for many first responders after the Pulse Nightclub Massacre.
On June 11, 2016 an intern at the church as doing the last service. When Kathy got out of bed she felt relaxed and she checked the headlines. She saw that there had been a shooting on Orange Avenue. She did not know Pulse at the time. She thought, maybe this was a drug deal gone wrong. She didn’t know the scale of what had happened.
At 7:45, the intern called and mentioned the headlines. They decided that the intern would start the service and then have the children’s story early which wold open up the service to just the adults. Details were still scarce. The first details about the scale of the event didn’t come out until 10AM and the service was at 11AM. People stated showing up for service early. She monitored things from the back row while the intern gave her sermon.
Logan Donahue is a member of the church and he arranged to connect Kathy with the Center’s director Terry DeCarlo. The blood mobile just happened to be at the church that morning. She called the hospital to see if they needed chaplains but they were covered. Just after 11AM Dr. David Hargove asked if the church could provide space for counseling for a couple of days. The church has six classrooms which could be used. Counseling began at 1PM that day. Dr. Hargrove had 600 licensed therapist volunteers on his list. The rooms were constantly staffed. In some ways it was just as important for the counselors to be there. They helped each other in coming to terms with what they would have to deal with inn the coming weeks.
Donations began to pile up at the church. Food was donated to the coalition of the homeless. The Tom Brady campaign was looking for space, Equality Florida ended up using the library as a community organizing space. The church staff stepped up to the plate to make it all work. On the first night they were warned against having vigils because there were safety issue. In the library people were gathered trying to arrange a vigil for Monday June 13, 2016. The city was saying, ‘Don’t do it.’ Someone dialed the Mayor Buddy Dyer at 11PM. They left a message saying ‘There is going to be a vigil, we need to find a way to make it work.’ The next morning the mayors office called with multiple people on the line and they said, ‘OK we here that there has to be a vigil but give us an hour to find a location.’ The location was changed from the Lake Eola Bandshell to the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
Then the media began it’s barrage of interview requests. About 20 church staff and volunteers went to the Dr. Phillips Center to help set up for the vigil. She was involved with the vigil. She spoke prior to the tolling of the bells. The bells were on a timer. The program was running behind. There was a rush to get her on stage but then they found out the bells had been reprogrammed. It was hot. She wasn’t certain exactly when the bells would ring so she had to time what she said. Improv classes she had takes at SAK helped keep her on track. She asked all gathered to take a moment to reflect prior to the ringing. She felt responsible for holding the space for 7000 people. The ringing of those bells for about 8 minutes was the most intense moment of her life.