Since 1982, the Orlando Sentinel has asked the community to help us recognize people who make a big difference in local lives with our Central Floridian of the Year award. Today, we will announce our first finalist. Our winner will be announced on April 11.
That the removal of something bright and beautiful came under the cover of darkness may have been the most egregious part of the story.
The state’s erasure – in the middle of the night on Aug. 21 – of the rainbow crosswalk outside the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando, one of the most significant sites in the state for the LGBTQ community, felt like another act of violence in a place now infamous for it.
And while the city churned with anger, Se7enbites owner Trina Gregory took steps, swift ones, to bring some beauty back. Her actions made her a finalist for the Orlando Sentinel’s 2026 Central Floridian of the Year award.
The people had feelings and energy. The politicians kept talking about “public property.” It gave Gregory an idea that started with a makeshift crosswalk on her own private property.
“But, then I thought, ‘Why am I thinking so small?!” Her big idea manifested into one of the city’s largest, swiftest and by-the-people art projects
“We’re not called The City Beautiful for nothing. We are a city that is full of art and color,” Gregory told the Sentinel upon learning she was a finalist. “I didn’t want to downplay anyone’s feelings about the loss [of the crosswalk] or take anything away from people feeling it … but everyone seemed so [incredibly] angry.
“But it was beyond anyone’s control at that point.”
She did the one thing she could control.
Central Florida artists gather at the Se7enBites restaurant in Orlando for the “Parking Spaces for Pride” project on Sept. 15, 2025. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
On Sept. 15, Gregory welcomed the Orlando community into the parking lot of her Milk District restaurant for Parking Spaces for Pride – A Rainbow Connection, where artists painted 49 parking spaces, a number symbolic of the victims killed in the Pulse shooting of 2016, but not, she says, as a memorial.
“It was and is most certainly a remembrance of the things that happened,” says Gregory, “but I was thinking beyond that. I was thinking about joy, about bringing joy back.”
Parking Spaces for Pride ‘just about the community,’ says Se7enbites owner
And it was, for her nominator, the tip of the iceberg in our consideration of Gregory for the 2026 Central Floridian of the Year.
“Trina responded [to the crosswalk removal] not with silence, but with creation…” wrote Evan Coutts, Gregory’s girlfriend at the time of the nomination (the pair got engaged just last weekend), “an initiative that received national attention for transforming private parking spaces into a public statement of belonging…”
“I see so much hate, and these protests, and the rhetoric of fighting back, but there’s another way to fight back,” Gregory told the Orlando Sentinel back then, “with kindness and love and creating community, and that is where this event comes from.”
In the roughly six months since her Parking Spaces for Pride, Gregory has received letters, postcards, emails and messages from around the world. Some include photos of the lot, taken when people were in town visiting and stopped by for a meal. Others are just notes of thanks from those who read the story, who saw the art. Still more come from artists, hopeful to be included the next time the lot gets painted.
A rainbow crosswalk was removed overnight outside of Pulse nightclub in Orlando, one of the most significant LGBTQ sites in Florida, as part of state and federal transportation officials’ aim to wipe “political banners” from public roadways. At left, the crosswalk is shown in 2017. At right, the crosswalk is pictured on Aug. 21, 2025. (Orlando Sentinel file)
The attention, she says, has been a shock.
“How does someone in England hear about this? Or Ireland? Or Seattle? The letters give me so much gratitude, to hear that it touched people so much that they want to share it … to find that it has become this movement of joy in a hate-filled world.”
Gregory has long been known for giving back to the community: through her work with Orlando Youth Alliance, her service to the Valencia College Culinary Advisory Board and her work on the board of Visit Orlando.
There are many more examples, but the impetus for this nod was the color she brought back to a group that felt stripped.
There is a community board inside Se7enbites, a space where, for years, local businesses posted their cards and event notices, as the Milk District and Orlando’s many neighborhoods beyond tend to be places where entrepreneurs hold one another up. But since the parking lot event, the business cards have gotten a little less real estate.
“We’ve had to make room for all the letters and postcards, so that people can read them,” Gregory says.
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2026 Central Floridian of the Year
Today: Finalist No. 1 – Trina Gregory
Thursday: Finalist No. 2 revealed
Sunday, March 29: Finalist No. 3 revealed
Thursday, April 2: Finalist No. 4 revealed
Sunday, April 5: Finalist No. 5 revealed
Sunday, April 12: Winner announced
More about our Central Floridian of the Year program and past winners and nominees at OrlandoSentinel.com/CFOTY