Lauren Anzaldo was on her way to work at Naval Air Station Pensacola just before 7 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 6, when she received a call from one of her employees that there was an active shooter aboard the installation. After waiting in a nearby parking lot off base for several hours to see what was going to happen, she came home and spent the day texting and keeping employees informed as they began to create their plan for the emergency response; she and six other employees reported to work at 3 p.m. that day, about the time the base was releasing staff sheltering in place since early in the morning.

Lauren is the clinical supervisor at the base’s Fleet and Family Support Center, located about two blocks from Building 633, where the shooting occurred. She oversees the counseling program and the suicide prevention case management program, providing clinical counseling for individuals, couples, children and families. Since the shooting, FFSC has opened an Emergency Family Assistance Center (EFAC) using reception staff, support staff and counselors to provide information, referral, support and counseling to the victims, witnesses, family members, friends and employees affiliated with NAS Pensacola and affected by the shooting, the deaths and injuries.

The shooting caused four deaths, including the shooter, and eight injuries, and continues to be investigated.

“The population I serve is affected in many different ways by this tragedy,” says Lauren. “Some were first responders; some were victims; some were witnesses, some were instructors or co-workers of the student victims, family members (spouses or children) of the victim, or witnesses, friends, roommates, classmates of the victims or witnesses. The entire base is affected.”

Leslie Grill also works at a Pensacola Navy base, at Saufley Field. Concerning that tragic day, “Initially we didn’t know what was going on and some of the team was getting automated phone calls about ‘something.’ We knew that something was going on, but not what…They locked down all of the bases in the area, NASP, Corry Station and Saufley Field, which was scary in itself. By the time I left at 2:30, we had pretty much pieced together the basic story, but not details.” And then she watched the news. “Some of it is still kind of a blur.”

Trista Blouin has been accepted into United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, to work toward a Master of Divinity in UU Studies. Beginning in January she will be studying full-time via live streaming video conferencing. The Seminary is one of the schools recommended by the UUA.

To have the flexibility needed to manage her multiple tasking, Trista has reactivated her portrait photography company, Look Who Just Blouin Photography, a business which earlier supported her for over 10 years. Renewing the business, she believes, “will provide me with the most flexibility to take care of my three children, work, and attend school.”

Until recently she worked with Guardian ad Litem. “But at the beginning of December, due to the high number of children who have been removed from their homes in our circuit, my job as Volunteer Resource Manager had to be reallocated to a mission critical position directly serving children.”

Spain and Wisconsin were choices for Thanksgiving travels for Bob and Lesley Ortiz – Lesley with her daughter Wendy to Madrid and Barcelona, Bob to longtime home turf in Wisconsin for a 20-member gathering of sons, daughter, family spouses, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Wendy, a schoolteacher, and Lesley first spent several days in Madrid, then took a high-speed train to Barcelona, where they rode the metro to traverse places of interest, sample tapas, visit Christmas markets featuring locally handcrafted items and – a highlight, to view the works of famous architect Antoni Gaudi, most of which are in Barcelona; “most impressive,” says Lesley: Sagrada Familia, the church he designed.