Man drives 1,200 miles to deliver crosses to Orlando

Greg Zanis has spent the last 20 years channeling his grief into hope for other victims.

The Illinois man builds wooden crosses to represent those who have been killed in mass shootings and travels the country to deliver them to the sites of tragedy. He began in 1996 after finding the body of father-in-law, who had been murdered with a gunshot wound to his head. Zanis built a white cross to permanently display in his home as a memorial to his loss.

At the weekend, Zanis drove 1,200 miles from his home in Illinois, to Orlando, Florida, where a massacre last Sunday left 49 dead at a gay nightclub.

“My message today is love your bother, love your neighbour. Don’t judge them,” said Zanis told Miami’s CBS4.

He has also built thousands of other crosses for victims of less-publicized tragedy to aid families in their grief. In Orlando, he plans to display the crosses for those paying respects to the dead to sign and he will then give them to families as a memorial.

“It is overwhelming to think about all the crosses I have put up,” Zanis told CNN following the shooting in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater that left 12 dead in 2012. “I am doing it for the victims, but this is a public grieving. This allows the public a place to go to and have that big cry.”

His memorials to gun violence victims aren’t meant as a political statement. He carries a gun everywhere he goes because “we need to be able to defend ourselves.”

Zanis said he connects with victims of shooting tragedies by sharing his own story of loss. He doesn’t allow families to pay for the crosses or accept donations for them. He just wants to provide a public symbol to bring people together.

“Just offering hope in a very hopeless situation,” he said.