Roadrunner Park bench to honor Route 91 victims

BY Dawn Rankins

The community of Canyon Lake is invited to join the unveiling of a new park bench that is being donated and dedicated to Roadrunner Park in remembrance of those who lost their lives at the Route 91 Harvest Festival Concert in Las Vegas, Oct. 1, 2017.

More than 500 people were injured and 58 people died as the result of a gunman who opened fire on the 22,000 concert goers. The park bench event is scheduled for Sunday at noon.

There will be some light refreshments served, but those attending should bring your own drinks.

Nicole and Tony Moisio attended the Route 91 Harvest Festival Concert where a gunman shot and killed 58 concert goers and injured 500 others. The couple raised funds for a memorial bench at Roadrunner Park to honor the victims. The bench will be dedicated Sunday.

Nicole and Mike Moisio were at the concert. They headed up the bench project and collected donations from others in the community who had attended the concert. The bench was projected to be installed around the fourth anniversary of the Route 91 Concert in October, but delays caused the bench to be installed recently.

“This is an early Christmas gift to the community of Canyon Lake,” Nicole Moisio said. “The memorial bench provides a place where people are able to go and heal, reflect and simply relax and enjoy the beautiful view.”

A memorial rock garden around the bench is being created and anyone who would like to decorate a rock and place it around the bench on Sunday is welcome to do so, Nicole said.

The bench idea came about after the tragic shooting took place four years ago. A shooter, positioned from a window at the Mandalay Bay Hotel which overlooked the concert, opened fire on the concert goers.

Photos provided by Nicole Moisio

Nicole and Tony were at the concert and Nicole said that surviving a terrorizing event like that put the important things into perspective. They sold their home in Lake Elsinore and joined their friends in Canyon Lake where they both immediately fell in love with the community.

“From the start, I knew Canyon Lake was a perfect fit for us,” Nicole said. “We moved right across from Roadrunner Park two years ago. We feel like we’ve hit the lotto being able to move to Canyon Lake. We frequently go to Roadrunner Park to sit on the dock and enjoy the view.”

As often as Nicole goes to Roadrunner Park, she said she began to wonder why there were no benches there. When she read an article in The Friday Flyer that mentioned a couple who raised money to have a bench placed in memory of a loved one, Nicole contacted the POA and inquired about obtaining one. She discovered that it would cost about $3,000 to have a bench with an emblem installed.

Nicole immediately knew Roadrunner Park would be the perfect place for a Route 91 Memorial Bench.

Nicole said she knew how the community pulls together to make things happen, so she put the idea of the bench on a community FaceBook page asking if anyone would like to donate towards the bench.

“Little did I know that there were other Route 91 survivors in Canyon Lake,” she said. “I was pleasantly surprised by the overwhelming response and within a month, the exact amount we needed had been raised.”

Nicole said she and Tony were touched by being able to hear the many stories from the survivors who were donating towards the bench and dropping off monetary donations at their home. She said that meeting these other survivors has blessed her and Tony with amazing new friends.

“I continue to be amazed at just how wonderful of a community Canyon Lake is,” Nicole said. “Tony and I would like to thank all the amazing and generous donors for helping make this dream of ours a reality. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank the community of Canyon Lake. We are excited to see everyone on Sunday for the bench and rock garden dedication.”