ORLANDO, Fla. — Deborah Bowie didn’t shy away from talking about the challenges she overcame during her first year at the helm of OnePulse.
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There was the structure of the organization and a need to transform it from a start-up like atmosphere to a professional nonprofit. There was the isolation OnePulse had built into itself, and a desperate need to connect with other LGBT-oriented nonprofits.
More recently, there was the shock of finding out the nightclub property wouldn’t be donated for a permanent memorial after one of the three owners declined to give up their land.
“The property should have been donated when the foundation was formed,” the executive director said, later affirming OnePulse would not pay for the site.
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That led to a rethinking by Bowie and the foundation’s board. Facing that reality – and the $100 million price tag of previous designs – decided to scale down their ideas and focus on something to deliver to the community as the decade mark closes in.
OnePulse’s new plan calls for a memorial somewhere else, either on the parcel next to the nightclub or at a warehouse property down the street. The warehouse itself will be converted into a part-museum, part collaboration space for the area’s 40+ LGBT-oriented organizations to anchor themselves in.
“I’m not so sure that we’ve been the best partner, to be honest,” Bowie said. “A lot of them really came to exist after Pulse, but they had no relationship with the foundation and that’s our fault.”
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Bowie reiterated a sentiment her organization has put out before: the buildings themselves mean less than the work they’re used for.
That doesn’t mean all plans are scrapped. Crews will begin utility work ahead of a “Survivor’s Walk” between the nightclub and Orlando Health, where many of the victims were treated, later this summer.
Several visitors to the nightclub site Friday enthusiastically supported the plans for the walk, even though they were disappointed the memorial itself would have to move.
“Being here, standing here where it happened is powerful,” Johanna Pscodma, visiting town on a work-related trip, explained.
Bowie said the new plans would crystallize later in the summer as well, after OnePulse got through the annual remembrance ceremonies, which are due to be held outside the Dr. Phillips Center instead of Pulse this year at some survivors’ requests.
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Bowie said she was also trying to fill volunteer positions with survivors, family members and others connected to the tragedy to bring as much of the community on board as feasibly possible.
“We may not get a clear sense of what people want, but we have an opportunity, I think, to hear from them about where they think the memorial should go,” she said. “What’s been very difficult to watch is that people who have been so traumatized already are caught up in the middle of all of this. That’s not helpful to anyone.”
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