LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Nearly nine years after the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting claimed the lives of 58 victims, the Las Vegas Community Healing Garden continues to serve as a sanctuary for remembrance, reflection and solace.
Landscaper Jay Pleggenkuhle, a Las Vegas resident for 36 years who designed the garden, said the space has highlighted the community’s capacity for unity and compassion in the wake of tragedy.
“With all the messages that are on the tiles, the people, even after almost nine years later, still come here and pay their respects and read the bios of each person and learn about their lives and who they were as a mother and father or best friend. It keeps them alive,” Pleggenkuhle said.
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Conceived in the hours after the shooting
Pleggenkuhle said the concept for the memorial materialized just one day following the Oct. 1, 2017, shooting while he was visiting a local coffee shop.
“I was at a little coffee shop laying out the week. The waitress kept crying and when I asked her what was wrong, she told me that her daughter was at the concert,” Pleggenkuhle said. “The thought of this poor woman being at home and her daughter’s out there in the world and she can’t get to her? We had to do something and I realized that. This affected all of us in some way.”
Recognizing that the city needed an outlet to process grief together, Pleggenkuhle pushed to establish a permanent green space.
“If we all went home and we didn’t have a place to go to and to talk, if we went home and went into that dark place and started to spiral, then the world would get very, very scary,” Pleggenkuhle said. “And just, we need a place where we can all come together, tell our stories and hug each other. We needed to be together, not alone.”
Preserving the memory of the 58
Pleggenkuhle credited the residents of Southern Nevada with maintaining the garden and honoring the lives lost.
“The lives of these people, these 58 are not forgotten,” Pleggenkuhle said. “The community is providing the space and the work that goes into it to continue, so the families know that their loved ones mattered.”
Following his work in Las Vegas, Pleggenkuhle said his ongoing mission is to help design and build healing and community spaces across the nation.
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