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D.C. Students Open Their Homes For Teens During Upcoming March For Our Lives
D.C. students are opening up their homes for teens attending March For Our Lives.
Teens have been a major driver in the forthcoming March For Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C. It's expected that crowds as big as 500,000 people will descend on the nation's capital to protest gun laws in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Area teenagers are now opening up their homes for fellow teens attending the March 24 event, according to People.
The idea came about when Maryland teens including 17-year-old Gabrielle Zwi, 18-year-old Kate Lebrun and 17-year-old Michaela Hoenig from Walter Johnson High School realized that some teens who wanted to attend the rally may be too young to get a hotel or accommodations with their parents. So the group has set up their own home-sharing network for teens coming to D.C. without parental supervision, according to reporting from Curbed. In just 48 hours, the group secured potential housing for hundreds of teens in homes, churches and synagogues. Some of those that have signed up are coming from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
“A lot of students are feeling empowered, even though their age might stop them from doing certain things,” says Zwi. We’re here to help them do that.”
"We’re marching because it’s not just schools. It’s movie theaters, it’s concerts, it’s nightclubs. This kind of stuff can’t just happen. You know, we are marching for our lives, we’re marching for the 17 lives we lost. And we’re marching for our children’s lives and our children’s children and their children," said Alex Wind, a survivor from the Parkland shooting.
March For Our Lives is one of two major protests organized. The other, National School Walkout, is being organized by the group who shaped the Women's March. “Students and staff have the right to teach and learn in an environment free from the worry of being gunned down in their classrooms or on their way home from school,” said the organizers in a statement. “Parents have the right to send their kids to school in the mornings and see them home alive at the end of the day.”
[Photo: Getty Images]
