Mourners gathered at chapels across Parkland, Florida to pay their respects to those who were tragically shot dead at Stoneman Douglas High School last week.
The first funeral was held on Friday at the Star of David Jewish memorial chapel for Alyssa Alhadeff, 14.
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She was one of the 17 people killed when a gunman stormed the school on Valentine’s Day and opened fire on pupils and staff.
Both the foyer and the main chapel of the Star of David were packed with people, while crowds gathered 15-deep outside to try and listen to some of the service.
Jewish prayers were chanted, before Alyssa was remembered as having ‘the strongest personality’, and as a creative writer with a memorable smile.
‘I ask you to live your life in full for Alyssa,’ a male voice was heard telling the crowd. ‘Be strong for Alyssa. Be kind for Alyssa.’
Earlier her distraught mother had screamed into CNN’s camera demanding that President Donald Trump take action after the shooting.
‘President Trump, you say what can you do?’ Lori Alhadeff told news crews. ‘You can stop the guns from getting into these children’s hands!
‘Put metal detectors at every entrance to the schools. What can you do? You can do a lot! This is not fair to our families and our children, who go to school and have to get killed!’
Later the same day, people said goodbye to 18-year-old Meadow Pollack at the Temple K’ol Tikvah.
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Meadow’s father Andrew Pollack slowly climbed the steps to the synagogue’s altar, looked down at the plain pine coffin of his teenage daughter, and told the crowd: ‘I am very angry and upset about what transpired.’
Referring to 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who is charged with the massacre, Pollack then shouted: ‘You killed my kid! My kid is dead. It goes through my head all day and all night. I keep hearing it. This is just unimaginable that I will never see my princess again.’
Others described Meadow as a young woman who was ‘beautiful inside and out’, and who loved to hug and smile.
Rabbi Bradd Boxman urged mourners to carry out acts of kindness in her memory.
Loved ones also came together at the Fort Lauderdale Marriott Coral Springs to remember Alex Schachter, a 14-year-old trombone and baritone player who was ‘a sweetheart of a kid’.
In his honour, Schachter’s family set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for a scholarship fund ‘to help other students experience the joys of music as well as fund increased security at schools’.
Speaking at a memorial service at the same hotel, Fred Guttenberg paid tribute to his 14-year-old daughter Jamie, who he said was ‘the energy in the room’.
‘Back in October I lost my brother to cancer from his service in 9/11,’ Fred told hundreds who had gathered at a community memorial. ‘That at the time seemed impossible to me. It made no sense. It couldn’t happen and it couldn’t get worse.
‘This is worse.’
Fighting back tears, Guttenberg said he couldn’t recall if he told his daughter he loved her as she headed to school that morning.
‘I don’t know what to do next,’ he said. ‘My wife is home. We are broken. But I can tell you – don’t tell me there’s no such thing as gun violence. It happened in Parkland.’
And on Sunday, people gathered at a synagogue in Boca Raton to remember Scott Beigel, the 35-year-old cross-country coach and geography teacher who died trying to save his pupils.
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Speaking to Good Morning America, student Kelsey Friend described how Beigel had helped them enter a locked classroom to avoid the gunman.
‘If the shooter would have come into the room, I probably wouldn’t be speaking to you now,’ Friend said.
Beigel ‘unlocked the door and let us in’, she said, adding: ‘I thought he was behind me, but he wasn’t. When he opened the door he had to re-lock it so we could stay safe, but he didn’t get a chance to.’
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