Sunday will mark 15 years since the shootings at Columbine, Colo., High School resulted in the deaths of 13 students and one teacher.
Rachel Joy Scott, 17, was the first student killed at Columbine. She chose to remain at school that day to eat lunch with a friend in need rather than accept an invitation from a group of friends to eat out.
Rachel’s Challenge is a series of programs and strategies based on Scott’s writings and life. Her legacy of reaching out to people who were different, picked on by others or new at her school is reaching millions of people every year.
On Thursday, Oconto Falls students and educators became part of the 21 million people influenced by Rachel’s Challenge to work to change their schools and communities by reaching out to others using kindness and compassion.
The Oconto Falls community was shaken last year by the suicide of senior Quinn Konitzer.
“After last year’s tragic loss, we began actively looking for support programs for this year,” Oconto Falls High School Principal Bruce Russell said. “Student leadership wanted to support a program for the schools.”
Rachel’s Challenge was started by Rachel’s dad and stepmom, Darrell and Sandy Scott, when they realized the impact Rachel’s writings and artwork had on her friends and classmates. While much of her work reflected typical teenage thoughts and feelings, her conviction that she would someday change the world resonated throughout her work.
Neil McIntyre, of Boulder, Colo., is one of 60 speakers traveling to schools in the United States and around the world to introduce Rachel’s Challenge. “I’m here to talk about how she lived, not how she died,” he told students.
Six weeks before Scott died, she wrote an essay called, “My Ethics, My Codes of Life.” In that essay, Rachel wrote about treating people with compassion and honesty, trust and kindness. “People will never know how far a little kindness will go,” she wrote.
McIntyre explained that Scott was greatly influenced by the story of Anne Frank, a German-Jewish teenager forced into hiding with her family during the Holocaust. She died at 15 of typhus at a concentration camp. Like Scott, Frank wrote about wanting to impact the world in some way.
McIntyre emphasized the importance of treating people kindly by reaching out to them with a smile, gesture or word, using Scott’s words and art to show her efforts to connect with the people around her.
He incorporated five challenges developed from Scott’s writings and actions toward others. Rachel’s Challenge asks listeners to look for the best in others, to dream big, to choose positive influences, to speak with kindness and to start their own chain reaction.
McIntyre shared personal stories, photographs and video clips with the audience, emphasizing the person Scott was and how she impacted the people around her throughout her short life. In closing, he asked the students in the audience to close their eyes and visualize the people they love and care about. “Tell those people you care for that you love them,” he said.
Students responded with a standing ovation. Faces showed tears, and students hugged others in small groups.
“It was an emotional roller coaster,” sophomore Kari Stich said. “It makes you feel grateful for what you have. … It really makes you realize how much of a jerk you can be.”
Freshman Amara Lister said McIntyre’s presentation made her feel differently about herself.
“It was wonderful. I’m a completely different person now,” she said. “I used to think I was always alone and wasn’t worth much to anybody. But now I know I’m worth a lot more than I thought.”
High school students were invited to create and organize a Friends of Rachel (FOR) club. The club gives students a platform to develop a continuing atmosphere of kindness and compassion, creating a permanent positive environment for students and community members.
On Friday, the club met to begin implementing plans to promote a more positive environment in the high school. But according to Kristin Whitehorse, high school social studies teacher and Student Council adviser, the change was already happening.
“There’s a different feeling in the building today,” she said.
She said 140 students signed on to FOR Club. A Facebook page was already online Thursday night, with 178 members signed in by Friday morning.
“We want the FOR Club to be student-driven,” Whitehorse said. “We’re hoping to change the climate of the school. We get lost in our own world and forget to reach out to those around us. We forget we’re part of a bigger community.”
Algebra teacher Greg Boehmer is hopeful about the venture.
“I don’t know where it’s going to go. It’s up to the kids to lead us,” he said. “Everyone here is a person. If we realize that first, then we’ll be able to treat each other with more kindness and compassion.”
According to Russell, the presentation cost $3,800. It was presented in several sessions for students in grades 3-12 and for community members in the evening. About $1,400 was budgeted for the event, and $500 donations were received from an Exxon Mobil school grant and Lifetouch Portrait Studios. The balance came from a variety of student organization fundraisers, primarily from Student Council and FBLA.
“It was worth every cent, from my perspective,” Russell said.
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