Finding the Magic When Tragedy Strikes Close to Home

Yesterday morning I woke up to hear news of a shooting in Orlando. By the time we got out of church late that morning the details were horrific. More than 50 dead and another 50 or so injured in a shooting that happened at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. I am not a news reporter so I won’t go into all the details of the story. You can check any news network for the latest information.This story involves every hot topic that exist- politics, guns, religion, sexuality, tolerance, hate, etc… and this is not the forum to discuss and debate that. That’s not my thing. I’ve all ready seen too many people ranting on social media and I’m certainly not going to chime in and add to the noise.

This is a first for me to be so close to such a huge tragic event. It can’t help but feel more personal, and for me to feel more connected to this story since it happened 20 minutes away from me. It feels as though all eyes are focused on my city and on these events. In the wake of all of this, I wanted to share something that really touched me.

Theme park employees from the Orlando area (Disney, Universal, Sea World and beyond) and even outside of Orlando began posting group photographs showing their support to those affected by this tragedy. Kevin O’Brien on Facebook began collecting all of these are posting them to a few Disney Facebook groups. The pictures are the most positive things I’ve seen since hearing of the shootings. I wanted to share them with you all, so you can enjoy them too.

I think these pictures highlight the special people that work and live in Orlando. This is the Orlando that I have seen since moving here.

Theme Park Workers Show Support in the wake of Orlando Shootings from Serena Skretvedt on Vimeo.