On April 20, 1999, in Littleton, Colorado, two high school students walked into Columbine High School and killed twelve students. Seventeen-year-old Rachel Joy Scott was the first student killed in the shooting. After the shooting, Scott’s father, Darrell Scott, found Rachel’s diary that held all of her innermost thoughts. In Rachel’s diary, Darrell discovered his daughter’s desire to create a chain reaction of kindness. After reading the entries in her journal, Darrell founded Rachel’s Challenge.

Rachel’s Challenge is designed to promote anti-bullying, and to spread kindness to others. The Rachel’s Challenge Team speakers travel mainly in the U.S., but also worldwide, to speak about Rachel and her dream to spread kindness and compassion. Paul Jackson is the Project Director at the Rachel’s Challenge Headquarters in Littleton, Colorado. He explained what the Rachel’s Challenge team does, and what they speak about.

“We do assemblies and talk about Rachel. We talk about her focusing on doing kind things for students who are new at school, for students who have special needs, and for students who get picked on and get bullied a lot,” Jackson said.

As a student, Rachel promoted kindness and compassion throughout her school. Rachel would say, “People will never know how far a little kindness can go.” Rachel used to write in her diary about dying at a young age and being content with the scenario because she knew she would make an impact.

“Who knows exactly what she was feeling or why she felt that way, but it was clearly something that she believed, and [The Rachel’s Challenge Team] just takes it at face value. That she was at peace with it, she said she understood that about her life, she still believed in those moments. [The Rachel’s Challenge Team] just accepts it,” Jackson said.

When the Rachel’s Challenge members give speeches at schools, they focus on promoting anti-bullying, and they emphasize Rachel’s belief of starting a chain reaction of kindness.

“[The speakers] tell them the impact Rachel had on the people in her life when she was alive and it tends to start a chain reaction… and do the same in their school. [The speakers] do assembly programs, and we do training for students after the assembly that really want to see that culture and climate at their school changed or made better and [the speakers] talk about how you can do that in the school [by] banding together, doing positive things in the school both individually and as a group projects within the school,” Jackson said.

Rachel’s Challenge usually impacts students who come out of the Rachel’s Challenge program and they tend to start a chain reaction of their own around their school and community.

“It really is a transformational kind of experience. We’re talking about touching people on a heart level, rather than a head level. Once you reach people at the emotional level, it tends to cause them to want to take changes in their life or live their lives, or see changes made in their school,” Jackson said.

Besides promoting anti-bullying, the Rachel’s Challenge team members hope to encourage bystanders to participate, and persuade them to stand up and take part in spreading compassion and thoughtfulness. The Rachel’s Challenge team hopes to accomplish these goals throughout schools in the world.

“We hope it gives them a motivation and it awakens… a want to treat people nicer and have more respect to others… that might have different lifestyles, different cultures, [and] different ethnicities and [we hope they] look [at] how we’re all related, [and] look at how we all fit together in the world and have a new respect for that,” Jackson said.

Rachel has saved thousands of lives across the world due to her belief in spreading kindness and starting that “chain reaction”. The legacy that Rachel has left for the world gives some students hope.

“There are literally thousands of people alive today that wouldn’t be had it not been for Rachel and her story. We hear countless stories [of] schools, [and their] entire population that are better places. Communities have been transformed because a few people in the school, after hearing her story, committed [to making] their school and community a better place.…So the legacy is that there are kinder places in the world because of Rachel, there are more positive ways to live, and that there are people alive who wouldn’t be,” Jackson said.

The Rachel’s Challenge team came to Revere Middle School on October 7 and talked to the students about promoting kindness and anti-bullying. Rachel’s Challenge has come to the middle school three times already and has initiated the students to form a club. Bunny Oldham is in charge of the club at the middle school.

“We want to start our own chain reaction and really change the climate of the school by [getting kids to be] inclusive, compassionate and kind to each other,” Oldham said.

The club started four years ago when the students started a “Pay For It” fundraiser.

“‘Pay For It’ was [when] we had kids fundraise all year round and raise money for a bunch of gift cards [and] a bunch of cash, and the kids in May went around the city and found people to do random acts of kindness. They pumped gas, bought breakfast, paid for dog food, paid for haircuts, they paid for cups of coffee, [paid for] movies, [and] they gave jewelry to moms with a bunch of kids in tow. It was just a very impactful program that we knew we had to have for years to pass,” Oldham said.

The school began Rachel’s Challenge in the light of promoting kindness and compassion throughout the middle school.

“It’s very important to take that second to realize that something bad might be going on in someone’s life and that might [make them] be a bully. It makes you pause when you’re about to say something you might regret. It’s so much easier to be nicer to someone or walk away rather than bully. I think that a lot of schools spend a lot of money on anti-bullying programs where we concentrate on how to fix the bully, where Rachel’s Challenge really concentrates on the bystander and how we can empower other kids to stand up for their friends that are having a bad day and it is a very positive influence in [places] that need it,” Oldham said.

The club impacts the school, and spreads Rachel’s Challenge all through the middle school, with more random acts of kindness. The club meetings are held twice a month, with one at 7:00 in the morning and one during social time. The meetings have included from 20 students to 140 students. Oldham explained what the club does during meetings.

“We start with an icebreaker. It’s always a fun game and everything from putting puzzles together, [to having] personality profiles done. Throwing [a ball of yarn]…to each other and saying nice things about people. Then we work on our projects. There’s a lot of letter writing, to everywhere from the teachers to bus drivers, [and] to the parents, to the friends. We’re planning our ‘Pay For It’ program, [and] we’re planning videos [where] each grade level is going to make their own. We [have a lot] of things going, and the kids are excited,” Oldham said.

Rachel’s Challenge has not only affected the community, but is continuing to affect students and adults around the world. Rachel’s dream of making an impact and making a chain reaction of kindness is being achieved through Rachel’s Challenge.