From a Los Angeles Gate to a Las Vegas Classroom: How the Global Angel Wings Project Became Cadwallader's 1 October Tribute

by Ryan Rose

What Happened: The Wings Went Up for the Ninth Anniversary

The Cadwallader display went up just before the ninth anniversary of Oct. 1, 2017. FOX5 reporter Martha Cruz described it as a moving tribute of hand-crafted angel wings. Each pair is dedicated to one of the 58 people who were killed that night at the Route 91 Harvest festival.

The most striking line in the FOX5 story came from a student. The student said they had seen the familiar "Vegas Strong" shirt but had never really learned what it stood for. "I thought it was just a slogan," the student told FOX5. After the project, the student said, they understood that the shirt and the people behind it "represent the strength of community, even after something so terrible."

That is the whole point of the project in two sentences. Most of these eighth-graders were about 4 years old in 2017. For them, "Vegas Strong" was something printed on clothing and bumper stickers. The wings give the phrase a face, a name and a story.

News 3 Las Vegas also covered the project on Sept. 30. Reporter George Acosta spoke with Christine Janette, the retired Cadwallader teacher and 1 October survivor who started it. "I felt this heavy feeling after that night that I needed to give back to the community," Janette told News 3.

Families of victims have noticed the care the students put in. Crissy Schweitzer, whose daughter Bailey was among the 58, told News 3 the students "really paid attention to our daughter, to Bailey, to the cheer, the racing, the teal." Teche Bergeron, a 1 October survivor, told the station the project "really lets the family know that their 58 are not forgotten."

Why It Matters to Las Vegas Residents

Every year, the number of people who remember 1 October firsthand gets a little smaller. That is especially true in schools. Today's middle schoolers have no memory of that week. Many of their families moved here after 2017. Without someone to explain it, the anniversary can feel like history that happened to somebody else.

The Global Angel Wings idea fits that gap well. Wings are a gentle symbol. They talk about hope and love without pointing to the violence. That makes them a safe way for a 13-year-old to learn about a hard day. Students do not have to relive the event. They learn about a person: a favorite color, a hometown, a hobby. Then they make something beautiful in that person's honor.

It also changes what "Vegas Strong" means to the next generation. The student who told FOX5 the shirt was "just a slogan" is not alone. A lot of kids, and plenty of newer adults, have seen those words without knowing the story behind them. The story is about blood donors lining up for hours, neighbors helping strangers and a whole city pulling together. When kids learn that, the phrase stops being a logo and starts being a value.

There is a neighborhood angle too. Cadwallader sits in the far northwest valley, far from the Strip. It is a family area with parks, busy school pickup lines and newer homes. A tribute like this shows that remembering 1 October is not limited to one corner of town. It belongs to the whole valley, from Centennial Hills to Henderson.

The details families mention tell you how seriously the students take it. When a parent can point to the cheer, the racing and the color teal on a pair of wings made by a stranger's child, that is real research. It is also real listening. Kids learn that you honor someone by paying attention to who they were. That lesson carries into every part of life, from friendships to future jobs. It is a quiet kind of civics class, taught with glue, paint and feathers instead of a textbook.

For parents, the project is also a ready-made conversation starter. A child who spends weeks learning about one person often comes home with questions. Those questions open the door to talking about loss, kindness and how a community shows up for each other, at whatever level feels right for your family.

Background and History: The Artist, the Teacher and the Survivor

The artist. The Global Angel Wings Project belongs to Colette Miller, a Los Angeles artist who studied fine art at Virginia Commonwealth University. In a 2016 interview with The AU Review, Miller said she painted the first pair of wings in downtown Los Angeles in 2012, on a corrugated metal gate. It took her just a few minutes. The idea came to her while driving in Los Angeles traffic, looking at blank walls and picturing wings on them.

Miller has said she wanted the wings to remind people of their better selves. "I wanted to put up these big wings that would remind humanity of its true divine self," she told The AU Review. She also said the work is not tied to any one faith. "It's non-denominational," she said. "I didn't have religious intentions when I did it." Her project website states the mission simply: to remind humanity that "We are the Angels of this Earth."

The wings are made to be part of a photo. They are human-sized and placed so people can stand between them. Miller's website says the wings are "free to the world" and are never owned by anyone, including her. Some are commissioned and some are gifts. Over the years, wings have gone up in places like Kenya, Australia, Japan, Cuba, Dubai, China and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Miller told The AU Review that people in Juarez reached out to her because they wanted the wings to help with healing after years of violence. That healing purpose is the same thread that later reached Las Vegas.

How did one gate in Los Angeles turn into a worldwide project? Miller told The AU Review it grew mostly by word of mouth and social media. People saw photos of friends posing in front of the wings and asked her to paint a pair in their own city. Over time, she said, she began aiming the wings at places with the most need, such as refugee camps and medical centers. In other words, the project was already being used as a tool for comfort long before it reached a Las Vegas classroom.

The teachers. After 1 October, Christine Janette, then a teacher at Cadwallader, came across Miller's wings. She took the idea to the school's art teacher, Francisco Eclarin. What came out of it was a Las Vegas version: not one pair of wings on a wall, but 58 pairs, each designed for a specific person.

Clark County helped show the project to the wider public early on. In a Sept. 28, 2022 news release, the county called it the "Spread Kindness Angel Wings Project." The release said Janette started it as a tribute to the 58 and as "an initiative to encourage kindness in the world." Each year, advanced art students under Eclarin get a photo and a short biography of each person. They use that to design wings they feel represent that person's life. That year, the county set up all 58 sets for display inside the Clark County Government Center following the Sunrise Remembrance Ceremony.

The wings were in good company that year. The same county release described other community art made after 1 October that was on display at the Government Center. One was The Art of Healing Mural, made by local artists and students at Las Vegas Academy of the Arts, with nine large panels of teddy bear images for the 58. Another was the Angels of Love exhibit, a set of stained-glass angels made by a California nonprofit and given to the county in 2018. Student art has been part of how this valley remembers from the very start. The Cadwallader wings are one of the few pieces that get made fresh, by new hands, every single year.

What Happens Next

The 10th anniversary is one year away, and the wings may soon have a permanent cousin. Construction on the Forever One Memorial started on Oct. 2 near the former festival grounds at Reno Avenue and Giles Street. Plans include an angel wall, along with 58 pillars of light and a Tower of Light. Organizers hope to open the first phase by Oct. 1, 2027. For families who have watched students build wings every fall, an angel wall at the memorial will feel familiar.

Inside Cadwallader, the project will keep going for as long as the school carries it on. Next year's eighth-graders will be even further from 2017. Many were toddlers in 2017, and some were not yet living in Nevada. That makes the project more important, not less. Each new class becomes another group of young people who can tell the story of the 58, and of the city that held together.

One more thing to watch: whether other schools pick up the idea. Miller's wings are free for anyone to share, and the Cadwallader model is simple to copy. It needs an art room, a list of names and a teacher willing to handle a hard topic with care.

Ryan's Take

I love the path this idea took. An artist in Los Angeles paints wings on a gate in a few minutes. Years later, a teacher in Las Vegas who lived through one of the hardest nights in our city's history sees them and thinks, "My students could do this." That is how good ideas travel. And it is how a city heals, one classroom at a time.

When families move here, they ask me about schools, parks and commutes. Those things matter. But what makes a neighborhood feel like home is the people who care about it. Two teachers turned grief into a lesson about kindness, and they have kept it going for years. That student who now understands what "Vegas Strong" really means is exactly why. If you live in the northwest valley, you have neighbors like this all around you.

What You Can Do

There is still time to see a public 1 October exhibit this week. Clark County's "Remembering 1 October" exhibit is in the first-floor Rotunda Gallery of the Clark County Government Center, 500 S. Grand Central Parkway, through Thursday, Oct. 8. It features items from the Clark County Museum's 1 October collection, including banners, letters, cowboy hats and stuffed animals left around the valley in 2017. Check the county's website for visiting hours.

The full collection lives at the Clark County Museum, 1830 S. Boulder Highway in Henderson. According to the county, the museum's 1 October collection holds about 22,000 items gathered from the Welcome to Las Vegas sign and other memorial sites. Staff and volunteers spent 18 months cataloging it, and many items were photographed for the museum's website. It is a powerful place to bring older kids who want to learn more after a school project like this one.

You can also support the permanent memorial. The Forever One Memorial website accepts donations and has a "Learn" section with resources for families and teachers. If you have kids at home, this is a good week to ask what they know about 1 October. You do not need to share hard details. Talking about the 58 people, and how Las Vegas came together, is enough.

And if you want to see the bigger art project behind the Cadwallader wings, visit Colette Miller's Global Angel Wings Project site. It has a map of wings around the world. If you ever pass a pair of painted wings on a wall, stop and take the photo. That is exactly what they are there for.

Have questions about how this affects your home or neighborhood? Reach out to Ryan Rose or text/call 702-747-5921 anytime.