One.

Year after the Club Q mass shooting, the Colorado Springs community is working towards growth amid its grief.

Everything's been a healing process, but mainly just a lot of continuous battles.

This memorial is still in place to honor the five victims killed and the dozens injured. But as the community mourns, tensions about how to move forward remain. Ashton Gamlin worked the door at Club Q. Her scars both visible and invisible, still prominent.

The last photo I ever have of very nicely well.

Put together arms. After she was shot nine times, bills piled up. And even though donations were pouring in to help victims, gambling and several survivors say the money came slowly and with lots of.

Red tape. They won't tell us what is and isn't covered. It's a guessing game and anybody's game at that.

$3.2 million in donations came in for people affected by the Club Q shooting, according to the Colorado Healing Fund, a nonprofit formed to help victims of mass casualties in the state. But the fund said 10 % of the donations was originally set to go towards administrative costs. Several survivors say it took months to receive any financial help, and they say there hasn't been transparency about where specifically the money is going. Gamlin says she purchased a service dog for psychiatric care, and now her doctor says she needs a temperature regulated environment to avoid pain from her injuries. These expenses were denied by the fund.

In the beginning, we shelled out everything we had because I wasn't working.

Do you feel like.

These roadblocks you've been hitting have impacted your ability.

To heal? It honestly has because I don't really take time to cope.

This week, after a year of pushback from survivors, the Colorado Healing Fund announced it will be releasing the remaining funds about $120,000. Their press release noted that they intended to hold back some funds to support the long term needs of victims, but immediate needs were too significant. Survivors receiving this money are free to use it as they need. The statement also saying they ultimately did not keep the donated funds for administrative or other costs. Another complication in the aftermath, a division and sentiment of survivors towards Club Q itself.

The survivor community has seen a distance from the Club Q ownership. I think on their end, money is leading the way. This is my bar and how fitting to keep the bartender up.

At the bar. I first met Wyatt Kent days after the tragedy last year. They're a former performer at Club Q, whose boyfriend, bartender Daniel Asten, was killed in the shooting. Now they say trust has dissolved, pointing to the disagreement over whether the club should open again at all.

There's amazing opportunities for our community to grow and find new spaces for them to thrive in. I am hesitant to say that the new queue space is that. There's plenty of other spaces in our community that uplift better than something that seems like a.

Financial grab. Initially, owners planned to reopen the original location with an on-site memorial, but after pushback from survivors, they changed course.

Nobody wants to party where their.

Friends died. Instead, construction is underway here at the satellite hotel prepping to open by the end of the year.

Simply called.

The queue. We want to honor everyone's very sensitive views, and we decided to pivot. And so now we are here. But it will be a venue in the same vein that Club Q has always been, which is providing a safe space for people who.

Need it. Michael Anderson is a survivor himself, bartending the night of the shooting. He's now the Vice President of Operations for the managing the new spaces opening.

Some of the survivors that we've spoken to are concerned that activity by Club Q opening this new space is what they phrased as trying to profit off of queer pain. What do you say to that?

My biggest concern is succeeding, not profiting. This is a humble venue and a very humble building, and it's a disingenuous criticism. Every person is welcome in this building. However, if you don't want to support it, that's.

Perfectly okay too. Disappointment in this division from both sides, especially when in the year since the mass shooting, hate speech and anti-LGBTQ legislation has only become more prevalent.

Our communities are under attack every day, and it's unfortunately not a new thing that we face. We've learned a lot, and this year has taught I think, a lot of us as survivors and as queer individuals in the community that there is power and resilience.

As someone who's unfortunately covered several mass shootings, the division we found here is unique and surprising. That tension highlights what survivors face as they're simply trying to recover from a tragedy like this. One of the survivors I spoke to said they're surprised that there isn't a handbook in place for how to move on from a mass shooting given the frequency that we see in this country. The concerns that we highlighted in the piece is something that survivors hope that both.

Lawmakers and city officials will.

Consider as they look forward to.

Make change.

And to heal.

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