That’s because the Plant High School senior was born in Coral Springs, the community adjacent to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
“I would have been districted for MSD,” Shapiro said in an interview. “So I grew up with some of the survivors. None of them were injured, thankfully, so this hit home for me, for sure.”
Despite the four-hour drive that separates Parkland and Tampa, many high school students feel an affinity to the victims and survivors of the mass shooting. These days, it could be any school in Florida, or in any other state.
That’s why attendance estimates for this weekend’s March for our Lives events happening across the globe, including in Tampa and St. Pete, are expected to exceed 1 million.
The rallies and marches will include speakers — students as well as elected officials —who will call on lawmakers to pass stronger laws on guns as well as protection measures for schools.
With help from Amy Weintraub, one of the key planners behind the wildly successful 2017 St. Pete Women’s March, which drew more than 20,000, Shapiro and her friend Macie Lavender, also a senior at Plant, are spearheading the Tampa March for Our Lives on Saturday.
In the wake of the Parkland shooting, Shapiro and Lavender — both of whom had already been into politics — sprung into action. They said they were behind a series of chalk outlines drawn at their school in protest of Florida’s lax gun laws the day after the shooting, which was accompanied by a list of the 17 people Nikolaus Cruz killed at Stoneman-Douglas.
Many of the two Tampa students’ classmates supported their efforts, but they said one student who doesn’t agree with them on guns defaced their list of those who lost their lives by writing “pro-gun statements” over it.
The kid who vandalized the tribute appears to be in the minority, though. Lavender said since the shooting, all anyone at school wants to talk about are guns and safety — so much so that entire class period are eaten up by such discussions. Lavender launched her school’s Democratic Club, and says that classmates who never showed any interest in politics are asking how they can get involved, and how they can vote in the next election.
“Kids that didn’t know anything about politics are being forced to because it’s a matter of our personal safety,” she said. “We’re the ones getting shot.”
They’re not exactly sure how many people are showing up to the Tampa event Saturday. A Facebook event page shows over a thousand people have said they’re attending, and 4,000 more are “interested.” It’s hard to tell what that number will really be, though, since so many kids have eschewed Facebook for other social media sites.
Doing the actual planning for the event — permitting for Kiley Garden, the site of the rally, logistics for a march through downtown to Joe Chillura Park — was daunting to them. They knew they needed the help of an adult, so Shapiro did some digging and, upon discovering Weintraub was among the key Women’s March organizers last year, reached out to her.
“The logistics are difficult and planning something like this is insane,” Lavender said.
Some 50 area schools are involved in the event.
Both girls said they got into politics at young ages — albeit via different avenues.
Shapiro’s mother is a Democrat and her father is a Republican (a fiscal conservative), and she tends to agree with her mother, a teacher. And even though her dad’s a Republican, all three can agree on at least one thing.
“My parents are different parties, but they both support this issue, so I think it goes to show that this issue doesn’t have to be partisan, that this is something we can all stand together on and make change,” Shapiro said.
Lavender’s political upbringing was a little different; she started out pretty far to the right.
“When I was little I remember my dad making us go to Tea Party rallies,” Lavender said. “He also had us go to Sarah Palin campaign events. I remember walking miles to go to her speeches.”
When her views first shifted, her dad initially had a hard time with it, but she says that with time, they eventually learned to agree to disagree.
The two seniors will be eligible to vote in the November midterms, and they say many others in their graduating class look forward to going to the polls for the first time with guns on their minds.
“If you are funded by blood money, I am not going to vote for you,” Lavender said. “None of these kids are going to vote for you and we’re all turning 18. This should be a message to any legislators that are actively opposing any measures that would protect us; that we will vote you out until we’re protected.”
Saturday’s march coincides with Tampa Pride, but organizers plan to have the events dovetail into one another.
The plan is to join up with Pride later in the day for a joint tribute to the victims of both the Douglas shooting and the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.
“With the Pulse shooting, both of our causes aligned,” Shapiro said. “We encourage people to attend both.”
This article appears in Mar 22-29, 2018.