‘Road to Change’ leads to South Florida
In West Palm, activists speak against gun violence
WEST PALM BEACH – The Road to Change tour stopped in West Palm Beach on Sunday, where the father of a Stoneman Douglas shooting victim recalled the horror of learning his son had died.
“You don’t want to be standing here like me as a father,” Mitchell Dworet said. “I think about my son Nick all day long.”
Dworet, the father of Nicholas Dworet, spoke for what he said was his first time in front of a group.
He recalled how he was waiting to pick his son up for swim practice the day of the shooting and how he didn’t find out until about 3 a.m. the following morning that he had died.
Student activists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School spoke out against gun violence and encouraged young people to vote this year.
They also had a personally delivered message for President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago private club and estate on Palm Beach. Trump himself was in New Jersey this weekend.
Photos on social media show the students pinning a $1.18 price tag on the Winter White House’s gates. The tags are a reference to the amount of money politicians have received from the National Rifle Association per student nationally, according to the March For Our Lives website.
Activists have used the price tags to call out politicians who take money from progun rights groups in the wake of the Feb. 14
school shooting at the Parkland high school.
Several Stoneman Douglas students were on the bus that stopped in West Palm Beach as part of the Road To Change’s Florida circuit.
The stop at Trump’s resort preceded a rally and panel discussion on gun violence just 2 miles away at Dreher Park.
About a dozen students from Stoneman Douglas and schools throughout Palm Beach County spoke in front of a crowd of about 100 people.
“Going to school is meant to be a safe haven, a place to learn and a place to make friends,” said Darryl Verna, an incoming senior at Stoneman Douglas. “So it’s important that kids understand that what’s going on in our country is not regular. It’s not supposed to happen.”
Dworet commended the student activists and said he was proud of the work they have done so far.
The students talked about arming teachers, the role of video games in a violent society and reaching people who disagree with them.
“Those who disagree with you ultimately do have the same goal … They care,” said Delaney Tarr, a Stoneman Douglas graduate and survivor of the Feb. 14 shooting. “We all want the same thing; we just have to find a compromise to get it.”
A group of about 10 protesters shouted at the students, calling them “angry liberals” and carrying Trump signs and a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag as they were escorted by police to a designated protest area.
Nora Burd, a native Colombian and West Palm Beach resident, said she opposed taking guns away. “Criminals are always going to have guns,” she said. “How do you defend yourself if a criminal has a gun?”
Sunday’s event also was the last of the statewide tour’s South Florida stops, with another round of stops scheduled to begin Saturday in Tampa.
A national Road to Change tour is also set to begin its second leg after recently ending its first month-long tour in Fort Lauderdale.
Students will head to Dallas on Saturday.