By Andrew Walsh
awalsh@wbcowqel.com
Columbine. The very name is enough to bring about a sense of dread and evil. For we as a nation instantly remember what happened that dark day in the late 1990’s at that idyllic high school in suburban Colorado as soon as we hear that word. Ever since April 20, 1999, that name has been associated with murder and bloodshed.
Names, and times, and events matter to our collective memories as a people. What we associate with them is important, and has the power to shape what we think and feel today. Rachel’s Challenge is a program inspired by one Columbine’s victims, and its goal is to contribute to what we feel about that awful day. Fortunately for us, the Rachel who was, was a bright light of a person. And the program that carries on her name and memory seeks to share that light with as many people as can be reached.
Galion Middle School was the setting for the Sept. 10 presentation of Rachel’s Challenge, but it is a truly world-wide event and the challenge goes out to all of us. For those who have heard the words, take the challenge to heart. To those who have not heard the words, find time to take the challenge.
Rachel Scott was a student at Columbine High School, and one of the very first ones shot when the massacre began. She was sitting outside on the lawn, eating lunch with a friend, when the bullets of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold pierced her body. Four bullets to be specific. She died on that lawn, along with 11 other students and one teacher. Her murderers also elected to take their own lives that day. It was horrific, senseless, and cruel.
While Rachel’s body died that day, something wonderful was born from the impact she had on the people around her. In that intense time of grieving and sadness, an essay was discovered by Darrell Scott (Rachel’s Father) as he was going through her room. The essay, which Rachel had written only six weeks before her death for a school project, was titled, “My Ethics and My Code of Life.” This essay served as the genesis for the Rachel’s Challenge Project.
Rachel’s Challenge is an event that travels to schools across the country and across the world. It has reached 40 countries and 17,000 United States schools. This program seeks to spread Rachel’s message of kindness and compassion. It uses her words. The coupling of kindness and compassion are featured heavily in Rachel’s essay.
She also spoke of a “chain reaction of kindness” that can ripple out and have unexpected positive impacts. In this, she took Martin Luther King’s words of peace and made them her own. Dr. King wrote, emphasizing the need for peace over violence, of a “chain reaction of evil.” He preceded this by stating that, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can drive out darkness.”
Rachel has helped preach this doctrine to 23 million people. Rachel’s Challenge is a message of dreaming big, she wanted to touch the world, and she has. It is a message of valuing you own self-worth, and helping others value their own by not dismissing them at the first sign of an imperfection or a frailty. It is also a message of hope. That something beautiful can rise out of a senseless tragedy.
But Rachel’s Challenge is also just that: a challenge to those who hear and partake in it. Kindness and compassion are not always easy and not always convenient. It can take strength to look for the best in people. One of Rachel’s greatest influences was Anne Frank:
“You can always give something, even if it’s only kindness.”