Thousand plus accept Rachel’s Challenge

Posted By Lori Penner

Posted 28 days ago

Rachel was compared to Anne Frank, because of the contents of her diaries.

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It’s hard to believe that the shooting at Columbine High School occurred a decade ago. The massacre on April 22, 1999 shocked the world and resulted in the death of 12 students and one teacher at the hands of two armed students.

For Nicole Nowlen, memories of that day are still as vivid as if they had happened just yesterday. She was in the school library and recalled how odd it was, hearing the gunshots go off and witnessing the mass panic among her peers. “But I honestly didn’t know what was happening. Your mind kind of goes numb during something like that. You go into a sort of fight or flight mode and it’s like you’re almost too scared to feel scared.” Nowlen made it out of the school, but not before being shot by the gunmen.

Since then, she has shared her memories of that day with hundreds of thousands of people, and in 2006 became part of a team which has delivered a program to over 1,000 schools across Canada and the United States called Rachel’s Challenge.

The life-changing program was inspired by Rachel Scott, who was the first person killed at Columbine High School. Rachel was shot while eating lunch with a friend on the lawn outside of the school’s library. She had written an essay a month before she died that reflected her actions and beliefs, titled My Ethics, My Codes of Life. In the essay, she urged people to start a chain reaction by treating others with kindness and compassion. This essay and the contents of her six diaries became the foundation of Rachel’s Challenge, which delivers powerful video/audio footage of her life and the Columbine tragedy, and motivates students to make positive changes in the way they treat others and to change the world one person at a time. On Oct. 21, Nowlen presented the program in Morris to about 1,100 Grade 7 to 12 students and educators from across Red River Valley School Division.

“Rachel always had a feeling she would die at a very young age,” Nowlen told the audience. “But she also knew that in her young life, she would somehow influence millions of people.”

The assembly, which was only the first of several steps in the program, was followed by a training session for both adult and student leaders.

Nowlen detailed five specific challenges from Rachel’s life for the students, such as eliminating prejudice in their lives, keeping a journal and setting goals, being aware of their influences, and realizing how the littlest things can do so much.

Each participant was also asked to find five people in the next week and show them how much they appreciate them. Students who accepted this challenge signed a 10 foot by three foot banner to be placed at their school to remind them of their promise to keep the chain reaction of kindness and compassion alive. Angela Dueck, a Grade 12 student at Rosenort School said “It’s amazing to me that someone who was our age could have made such a huge impact on so many people. That is really inspiring to me.”

Grade 12 student Andrea Waldner also signed the banner. “It’s hard to imagine what happened there that day. I had never even heard of Columbine.”

“Most of the kids here haven’t heard of it,” explained Nowlen. “They were too young when it happened. But the lessons that came out of it are still very relevant today. You can’t see this presentation without it impacting you in some way.” Rosenort teacher Dennis Wiebe agreed. “But I think for the affect of this program to last, schools have to continue to take initiative and make respect and compassion a priority among their students.”

Grade 10 student Riley Scharfenberg admitted to getting a bit emotional during the presentation. “It does put out a lot of motivation for good acts,” he said. “I know it motivated me. It made me see that sometimes being kind is as easy as being nice to others and just encouraging them.”