Close to fifty 1199SEIU Florida members and their families were among thousands who marched from Crooms Academy, Seminole County’s first all-black high school, to the Sanford Police Department on March 31, calling for the arrest of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, 17, who was unarmed on his way home from a convenience store.



“The Sanford Police Department has a long history of keeping things quiet and being a good ol’ boy network,” said 1199SEIU Florida Delegate and Sanford resident Shantee Howard, who has spent most of her time when she’s not at work at the Health and Rehabilitation Center of Winter Park & Maitland organizing Sanford residents by door knocking, phone banking and answering a lot of phone calls.



“When something happens in Sanford, people call me. A lot of residents are telling me they think nothing will ever change here, but I tell them this is our chance to bring everything to light. That’s how change begins.” Leading up to the march, which was Sanford’s third protest in a month, 1199SEIU and NAACP launched a series of radio ads in Spanish and English to help Central Floridians join the NAACP and 1199SEIU-sponsored march. The English language ad, which features the voice of one of Trayvon Martin’s high school classmates, Gigi Levasseur, who is also 1199SEIU Florida’s Executive Vice President Monica Russo’s daughter. “He came from our school and he was friends with a lot of people,” Levasseur said. “People were really close to him. He was like family.”



1199SEIU Florida members joined the march from all over the state, including Pearl Gooden, a CNA in Tampa. “I am a grandmother. This could have been my 19 year-old granddaughter. This could have been my neighbor’s child.” She added, “We all know Trayvon Martin.”