After Pulse: Zebra Coalition

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content.

Heather Wilke is the director at Zebra Coalition. After the Pulse nightclub massacre the Zebra Coalition provided significant services for the LGBT community. Zebra assists LGBT youth. Heather was at Zebra for about a year and experienced an exciting year of growth and then Pulse happened. Things turned for the entire community. Zebra was suddenly in the spotlight. Everyone was in crisis. For two weeks media was swarming everywhere. As the director she kept getting calls from media for at least six months.

The night before the shooting Heather went to bed at 9pm. She announced on Facebook that she was putting her eye mask on and turning the phone off. With a small child, sleep becomes precious. It was 6 am when she got up and first looked at her phone. She checked on family and friends and then the Zebra kids and staff. Everyone she contacted was fine.

She went to the Center at 8:30am. There was a press conference with LGBT leaders at 10am. That evening there was supposed to be a dinner with friends. That went on hold. The day was a blur of response and reactions. Everyone was in crisis mode. The streets were blocked off in every direction down by Pulse and media was swarming. Police had to redirect traffic on Mills because of the Center across the street. At the Center board members were scrambling to figure out what could be done.

The Center was packed. People needed a community. They needed to physically be around people and have a place to gather. The Center became that. It was a beautiful thing to witness.  Security came out to figure out who could go in. People brought food. Overflow supplies went to the Zebra Coalition.

The Zebra Coalition put everything aside and responded to the community needs. They responded to survivors, youth that were in the club at the time of the shooting. Zebra became the hotline for two weeks. They already had a 24 hour hotline that then was directed towards the crisis. Mental heath counselors in the community all stepped up. All the volunteers were organized. People rotated through Zebra. Counselors came in for 3 to 4 hour shifts 24 hour a day. Many of the calls were not from youth but instead from people who wanted to help.

People started bringing water to the coalition. They had water from floor to ceiling in the back room. Startbucks came by every day with coffee. Universal Studios brought lunch every day. Church groups and school groups came by delivering trinkets. At one point all the windows at Zebra were full of art. One group delivered rainbows so there were rainbows everywhere. Therapists made “You Matter” cards. The school of holistic medicine brought by essential oils.

After several weeks the Orlando United Assistance Center (OUAC) took over the organizational aspects of donations and distribution. Zebra went back to business as usual with a different lens. They were always supporting youth in crisis, but now they had this trauma lens. Youth felt unsafe. It was about a week before many regulars started coming back. They were scared, they didn’t want to leave their houses. When they already had anxiety and depression issues, they wanted to get them back to actively engage with them. That fear lingers. The past Pride, people didn’t want to go into massive group gatherings. People felt they have a target on them.

Zebra did work with several youth who were in the club at the time of the shooting. Noises can trigger the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). One youth didn’t reach out for help until six months later. For the most part however, OUAC handled survivors and families of the victims.

For six months Heather was working in non stop crisis mode. After six months she finally got some time to decompress and the enormity of what had happened sank in.

 

 

 

After Pulse: Nichole Elinoff

Posted on by Thor

Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content.

Nichole Elinoff is the sexual minority coordinator at the Florida Department of Health, working in HIV prevention within the GLBT community. At the time of the Pulse Nightclub massacre she served at the GLBT Center as director of clinical services.

The entire state of Florida does not have sex education. Each county handles the subject differently. Central Florida, is 6th in the country for HIV infections. Florida as a whole is number 1 in the country for new HIV cases. All of the top 10 highest HIV infection rates are from counties in the the south. Miami Dade, Florida is Number 1 and Baton Rouge, Louisiana is number 2.

Nichole was in South Florida when the Pulse Nightclub shooting happened. Sunday morning June 16, 2016 at 8am she got a call from the board president of the Center. Since she was asleep, she didn’t immediately pick up. She kept getting calls and texts. The first text she read was “are you OK?” Someone else knew she was in South Florida and said she was safe. On Facebook she saw the black Pulse logo and the rainbow.  She couldn’t believe what she was reading. She called the Center and made arrangements to get back to Orlando.

She drove back to Orlando that day in record time. She went to the Center for the press conference. Her husband brought donuts. The Center was packed with board members, community members. She hugged everyone. The mental health counseling effort was already being coordinated. The HIV testing program had to be shut down that week since there was so much going on.

A dear friend was the lead HIV test counselor that she worked with at the center. She was trying to call him constantly throughout that day. The week before he had been at Latin night at Pulse. She couldn’t reach him.  He finally called back while she was at the Center and she broke down and cried. He wasn’t at Pulse on the night of the massacre.

Monday morning she helped coordinate the media response. She updated the Facebook pages. She looked at the Go Fund Me that the Center created and helped maintain that site. She coordinated her staff of volunteers to bring water to the blood donation sites. Lines of people were standing in the sun and they needed water.

When the Orlando United Assistance Center opened at Camping World Stadium,  she set up a table with two other staff members. They interacted with the families of victims and survivors. They found out what their needs were and they passed out gift cards. She brought gift cards and supplies to her team.

Testing returned to the Center after that first week. It was a challenging couple of months after Pulse. One of her staff decided he needed to go into victim advocacy. He was hired at the Orlando Assistance Center. After he left she needed to do his job as lead tester, as well as her own until she could find someone to fill his position. She organized some training with the Red Cross for her volunteer staff to talk about dealing with grief, and how to look for trauma.

People they were testing mentioned that they were taking more chances like sex without condoms, more drinking and more substance use because they may have lost friends or someone they knew. They were trying to cope. After a tragedy people tend to take more chances. They want to feel safe and unprotected sex can become a problem.

There was no HIV support group for Spanish speakers so she wrote a grant to help get one started.

After Pulse: Candice Crawford

Posted on by Thor

Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content.

Candice Crawford is the CEO of the Mental Health Association of Central Florida. She is a member of the board of the Plaza Live as well. The night before there was a shooting of singer Christina Grimmie at the Plaza Live. The board came to this board room to try and deal with the repercussions of that tragedy. They were pretty shaken up about it. That board meeting happened all afternoon on the Saturday before the Pulse massacre. An 8am conference call was scheduled for 8AM Sunday morning 12 June 2016.

She got up just before 8AM and got a cup of coffee. When the conference call began the conversation was about the mass shooting. At first she thought the mass shooting might have happened at the Plaza, but no, they were talking about the Pulse Nightclub. What in the world is happening?  It was quite the weekend. She called several members of her staff after the conference call ended. They needed to have someone at the Mental Health Association to answer the phones. Phone call could be forwarded to one of the staff members in case anyone called looking for help. There were lots of calls.

The next day they needed several counselors in the offices. On the first day one person came in and the next day 4 or 5 came in. She decided that a Pulse directed counseling program would be needed. She realized there would be a lot of young people at that club who did not have insurance and they would need counseling. Fundraising began to get the program up and running.

Orlando United Assistance Center (OUAC) gave referrals and others sough help on their own. Everyone who has sought help has gotten help. At the time of the interview 118 people had participated in the counseling program. Confidentiality was of the utmost importance.