美国国家公共电台 NPR Washington, D.C., Residents House Students Coming In For Gun Control March

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The student-led anti-gun violence rally March For Our Lives takes place in Washington this weekend. Since D.C. hotels are expensive, a number of area residents are opening up their homes free of charge to the students and families traveling to the nation's capital for the event. NPR's Brakkton Booker reports.

BRAKKTON BOOKER, BYLINE¹: Phil Sturm is a realtor who lives in Chevy Chase, Md.

PHIL STURM: I'm going to be a host for actually 18 to 20 - we think 18 but possibly 20 - that are driving up from North Carolina on Friday.

BOOKER: He's allowing a group of high school and college students to stay at his home so they can all take part in the March For Our Lives demonstration² on Saturday. By now, he and his wife are pros³ at this.

STURM: We've had people for Earth Day. We have had people for the Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart march. We had a houseful for that one. We had a lot of people for the Women's March.

BOOKER: Sturm says when he was younger, his mother would open up their D.C. home to young people protesting the Vietnam War and the Cambodian incursion in the 1960s and '70s. He sees it as carrying on her legacy⁴.

STURM: I get energy - great energy from young people. I think it's contagious⁵.

BOOKER: Sturm came across a link asking for housing hosts online and was quickly connected with organizers of the group DC Teens Action. That's a group started by students at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Md. It was formed after 17 people were killed at a high school in Parkland, Fla., last month. Seventeen-year-old senior Gabrielle Zwi is one of the DC Teens Action organizers.

GABRIELLE ZWI: We were looking at barriers, kind of what might keep students from coming to the March. And the two biggest things were transportation and lodging⁶.

BOOKER: While Zwi says there is nothing she and her friends could do about transportation costs, they could help find homes for students. The group found room for nearly 300 people with folks coming from as far away as Washington state, California and Ohio.

Kate Lebrun is another student organizer with DC Teens Action. She says she was so motivated by the platform the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida created after their school shooting that she took part in a school walkout in Washington, D.C., a week later. It was a demonstration about guns and school safety. While at that march, she learned alarming news at her own high school.

KATE LEBRUN: While I was down there, I got news for my brother that there was a bomb threat at our high school and that everybody had been evacuated⁷ to the football field.

BOOKER: The bomb threat was a false alarm. Still, she says it drove the point home that something has to be done about keeping students safe while at school.

LEBRUN: This has been the norm for us growing up. In schools, like, we practice what to do when there's a shooter, and it's been happening as long as I can remember in school.

BOOKER: Cindy Sherman lives in northwest Washington, D.C., and is a mom of four. She's not involved with DC Teens Action, but a week after the Parkland shooting, she spent hours at her laptop, emailing anyone she could think of to see about helping⁸ students find lodging.

CINDY SHERMAN: You know, so within a week, I had about 130 families committed, offering about 500 beds.

BOOKER: Some hotels don't have 500 beds.

SHERMAN: I know. I know. It's so funny. I still get emotional. It was unbelievable to me - people's response.

BOOKER: Sherman says she's never participated in a demonstration ever in her life. But she will this weekend, marching alongside students.

SHERMAN: I've cared about stuff, but I've never felt the need - I guess, I never thought it would matter. But for some reason, I really think this matters.

BOOKER: She says because this time it's a movement that involves kids. Brakkton Booker, NPR News, Washington.

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