TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Patricia and Manuel Oliver have been riding around the country in a yellow school bus that you can spot from down the street.
They’re the parents of Joaquin “Guac” Oliver, who died in the Parkland shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.
They describe their son as someone who loved sports and writing and someone who was funny.
“Nobody talks about these shootings anymore so we’re trying to bring that information back,” Manuel Oliver said.
They made a stop in Tucson on Sunday, their tenth stop out of 23. Many of their planned stops are at cities that had mass shootings like Columbine and Sandy Hook.
On Sunday they held a press conference at the January 8 memorial in Tucson. It’s part of their organization Change the Ref’s tour called Guac’s Magical Tour.
“We’re trying to find the families and people that have suffered the same way that I have suffered and give them a platform,” Manuel Oliver said.
Tucson resident Katie Woodall is using that platform to talk about surviving the shooting in Vegas at the Route 91 Harvest festival in 2017 where she suffered injuries to her oblique muscles near her ribs.
It took a long time for Woodall to talk about her experience with people who have also gone through mass shootings.
“Once you have the ability do that and you find a group who can be able to share in that commonality, there is true strength in that,” Woodall said.
Cameron Kasky shares that commonality with her as a survivor of the Parkland Shooting. He’s tagging along with the Olivers on their tour and is a founder of the March for Our Lives campaign.
“I could tell you what I felt that day but what I’d rather tell everybody is that they could very well be in the exact position I was,” Kasky said.
It’s an experience the Olivers said might never go away for survivors of mass shootings.
“They’re living their PTSD still. 5 years and plus months since happened to Parkland,” Patricia Oliver said.
That’s why they continue to fight even though they say they really haven’t made much change at a legislative level.
They have about a month left on their tour and are hoping their son will be the face of that change.
“I’m convinced that he will be leading the package, leading the movement that will finally defeat gun violence,” Manuel Oliver said.
