Brown University students are supposed to still be at school, on the picturesque campus in Providence, Rhode Island.
This is finals week. But after the mass shooting Saturday, the Ivy League school canceled all final exams, so shell-shocked students are coming home early, including at least a half dozen who arrived Monday afternoon on a nonstop flight to Fort Lauderdale. Forty-eight hours after the tragedy, it’s a bittersweet homecoming.
“Especially growing up in South Florida, we’ve done tons of drills and training all throughout high school, but you don’t think it’s gonna happen to you,” said Dani Sinai, a junior, after hugging her father at baggage claim. “I mean, I was in the library when it happened, I don’t know if I’ll ever return to that library, so I don’t know if people will ever feel totally safe walking around.”
Sophomore Avery Rudlich showed us a video of her and her roommates barricading themselves into their dorm room.
“Thoughts and prayers from politicians are not enough to keep us safe,” Rudlich said. “Me and other students hid under desks while working on our exams and it was such a surreal experience of what it’s like to be a student in America that we were there for a final and suddenly, someone else wasn’t there anymore.”
With finals canceled, hundreds of Brown students were stranded in Providence, unable to afford new airline tickets, so recent Brown grad Autumn Wong decided to help.
“This was like midnight to 4 a.m., I paid for a bunch of people’s flights,” said Wong, who graduated from Brown last May.
Realizing that she did not have the personal resources to meet the demand, Wong tapped into the South Florida Brown alumni network and set up a GoFundMe effort, which has already raised over $12,000 and helped dozens of students find their way home, including some international students. Donations are still being accepted. Any funds left over in the Bruno Flight Fund will be transferred to a fund benefiting the victims.
“I’m really proud of the Brown community for coming together like this,” Wong said.
The students we met at the airport are relieved to be home, but they’re still processing what they just experienced. Two of their colleagues were murdered and nine were wounded.
“I and the entire Brown community are mourning their lives, they were in school studying for their finals and no student should ever have to feel the kind of fear that we’re all gonna fear on their behalf from now on,” Rudlich said.
So what happens when students go back to school after the holidays, with the possibility that the gunman might still be at large?
“But what are you gonna do? You know, life has to go on,” said David Sinai, Dani’s father.
Sinai said parents have to trust that everyone will be safe once classes resume, and hope that police track down the shooter.