Max Schachter

On the morning of Feb. 14, Max Schachter was a soft-spoken, 46-year-old Coral Springs insurance agent specializing in life, health and risk management, with a wife, two sons, two daughters and a home in idyllic Parkland. It was a life he had rebuilt after his first wife, Debbie, the mother of his boys, Ryan and Alex, died in her sleep in their Pembroke Pines home 10 years ago. Everything changed on Feb. 14, when he sent his 14-year-old son, Alex, off to school “and he never came home.” Since the shooting, Schachter has thrown himself into the cause of school safety, forming the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Commission, which had its first meeting in Parkland less than two weeks later with participants from Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver, Indiana and across South Florida. Schachter, who spent several days this week in Washington, D.C., meeting with legislators on Capitol Hill, is raising money for the cause at SafeSchoolsForAlex.org and GoFundMe.com/LifeIsLikeARollercoaster.