Once upon a time, there was a girl
named Rachel Joy Scott. Okay, so maybe she was not a storybook character, but
sometimes her story seems like it could be the plot of a best seller. Rachel was a senior in high school who went
out of her way to make the world a better place. She stood up to bullies, sat with new kids at
lunch, and never hesitated to reach out a helping hand. However, her mission to
change the world came to a halt on April 20th, 1999, when she was became the first victim of
the Columbine Shootings. Her journey may have ended that day, but that of her
family and friends had only begun. They traveled across America, visiting
millions of schools to spread Rachel’s story and asked students to continue
Rachel’s journey to make the world a better place; they asked them to accept Rachel’sChallenge.
We had a representative come to my
school two years ago. After he gave his
presentation, he invited the students who were interested in hearing more back
for an afternoon session. During that
second session, he asked people to come up and talk in front of the whole
auditorium. At least ten kids got up and talked about how much the presentation
affected them and made them cry. I
wanted to talk more than anything, but I was absolutely terrified. My palms were sweaty, heart was pounding out
of my chest, and I was shaking uncontrollably, though looking back on it, my
sister later commented that she had no clue I was so nervous. Three,
Two, One, Go. I counted the numbers down in my head and then stood up. There was no going back now. Walking down the
aisle of the auditorium felt like an eternity, but it soon proved to be worth
it once I received the microphone.
“Hey. So I guess we’ve already said
how much this has affected us. I think
the question now is: What are we going to do about it?” Then, I proceeded to tell them what I did in between
the first and second session instead of going to lunch. I wrote compliments and inspirational quotes
on sticky notes and stuck them on random lockers. At this the 500 kids in the
audience let out a huge “Awwwww!” But honestly, I didn’t tell them to get a
response like that. I told them that so
they would do the same. Sure enough, the hallways were filled with sticky notes
for the next two weeks.
So maybe the sticky note project
didn’t last forever. After all, two weeks is a relatively short period of
time. My memories of the event will
never fade, though. That day, I spoke in
front of my school, and they actually listened to what I had to say. And the best part? When I sat back down in my
seat afterwards and my sister whispered in my ear, “I was proud of my little
sister up there”
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