Healing garden being set up in Vegas to honor shooting victims

LAS VEGAS (KABC) -- Days after the Las Vegas massacre, the healing process began on the strip as construction on a special garden commenced.

Slowly people made their way back to a parking lot next to where the Route 91 Harvest Festival took place to recover what was left behind in the chaos.

Beyond the parking lot, deeper into the crime scene, there are still belongings littered where the massacre took place. Authorities estimate it'll be another four to five days before they can let people in to get their belongings.

But near the Mandalay Bay, the cleanup began and on the north end of the strip so did the healing.

In less than a week, a place for healing will be available right behind Tom Perrigo's place.

"She told me to go look out back yesterday and I go, 'oh my gosh,' they were unloading trees. The surprise was that it all happened at once," Perrigo said, who is with the Las Vegas Community Development team.

What would typically take months has happened overnight. Volunteers and contractors collected roughly $300,000 in donations. Siegfried and Roy shipped a center piece from California, which will grow in the middle of a heart.

"We've already had some things planned here, but this is just an amazing project. The community coming together to create something special," John Pacheco said.

The Healing Garden will soon be home to a permanent memorial, but until then it's a place to mend.

"I had six flags leftover from the Fourth of July, so I put them up across the front of that. It's great, and all the love and energy and the soul that's going into that," Perrigo said.

Some volunteers hope the victims' families and the community will find meaning in questions that may never be answered.