ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Nearly 10 years after the Pulse nightclub shooting, one Orlando mother is continuing to turn grief into action.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Mayra Alvear traveled to Washington, D.C. to share her daughter\u2019s story with lawmakers
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Amanda Alvear was one of 49 victims killed in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting
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Her story is featured in the \u201c30 Under 30\u201d magazine honoring young lives lost to gun violence
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Alvear says she will continue to advocate to prevent other families from experiencing the same loss<\/p>\n
Mayra Alvear traveled to Washington, D.C., bringing her daughter Amanda Alvear\u2019s story directly to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n
Amanda was among the 49 people killed in the 2016 tragedy. During the trip, Alvear joined other families from across the country as part of the \u201c30 Under 30\u201d special edition magazine, a national project created by Change the Ref that honors young lives lost to gun violence before the age of 30.<\/p>\n
The group gathered with lawmakers and hand-delivered copies of the magazine, hoping to put faces and stories behind the issue of gun violence.<\/p>\n
Alvear said the goal was to make sure Amanda is remembered for who she was, not just how she died.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmanda was fun, the life of the party, the life in the house. She was very caring, very outgoing. She loved life, full of energy. She had a big heart. She was beautiful inside and out,\u201d Alvear said.<\/p>\n
Amanda had plans to work in the medical field, with dreams of becoming a midwife and helping others, goals her mother says were taken too soon.<\/p>\n
Now, Alvear says sharing her daughter\u2019s story is part of keeping her legacy alive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gave her a voice. She\u2019s not just a name. She\u2019s not a statistic. This is a way people get to know her, know what she was all about, know that she had dreams,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Alvear said taking those stories to Washington was about more than remembrance, it was about pushing for change.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to Washington, D.C. because that\u2019s where change happens. We want to share their stories,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She says nearly a decade later, the pain of losing her daughter has not gone away, but she has found purpose in advocacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to move on. You live with the pain. You live with the memories and you have to find something that motivates you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Alvear says she will continue to be her daughter\u2019s voice, sharing her story in hopes of preventing other families from experiencing the same loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Nearly 10 years after the Pulse nightclub shooting, one Orlando mother is continuing to turn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1011,274,3949,1190,115,139,141,140,16956,278,835],"class_list":["post-250837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-top-stories","tag-bryanna-howard","tag-human-interest","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-pulse-shooting","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}