In the wake of the August 3 massacre a makeshift memorial sprung up behind Walmart. There were flowers and stuffed animals, wooden crosses and candles. For months people have been going to the memorial to pay their respects. A few weeks ago, a local civic organization began cleaning the memorial area by removing dead flowers and making sure that things were tidy. This week, the City of El Paso will begin removing items from the memorial, selecting a variety of items and moving them to a temporary memorial located at Ponder Park. The items that are not housed at the Ponder Park location will be cataloged for historical purposes by experts from the El Paso Museum of Art, the El Paso Museum of History, and the Public Art Program.

Volunteers will be helping the working alongside the Central Transportation and International Moving Warehouse to carefully disassemble the makeshift memorial and make sure that every item is cataloged and archived. The City wants to make sure that each part of the memorial is properly documented in order to preserve this part of El Paso’s history.

Offiials with Central Transportation and International Moving Warehouse say they are helping in the process of deconstructing and archiving the memorial as a donation to serve the El Paso community.

In order to make sure the items at the memorial site are properly handled, City officials worked with experts from other communities that were impacted by similar acts of violence. They were guided in the efforts at the Walmart memorial by officials in Pittsburgh, Orlando, Boston, Las Vegas and the 9/11 Memorial Museum to figure out how to make the right moves in order to document this horrible tragedy, and to keep the items at the memorial as a lasting reminder of our city coming together in its wake.

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