Rachel Challenges Mills

The nonprofit organization Rachel's Challenge spoke at an assembly at Mills High School on Sept. 9 hoping to deter school violence.

Rachel's Challenge is named after Rachel Scott, the first person killed during the 1999 Columbine High School shootings. The organization is based off of Rachel's diaries and journals found and read after her death. Her journals contained themes like love, compassion and tolerance. Using her journal entries, the nonprofit created five challenges to try to get students to be more caring towards others.  

"I'm definitely going to try to help start a chain reaction," said Christine Murray, a former student of Mills High School, referring to Scott's chain reaction theory that if one cares about others, they will in turn care for someone else.

"I couldn't stop crying," said Murray.

One of their goals listed on their website states that they want to challenge schools to create a better learning enviroment in which students feel safe from school violence and bullying.

The other challenges included shutting out "negative" influences in the lives of students. The speaker, Rob Lykins, treaded carefully and made it clear that he doesn't want to talk down to people, but people should be more aware of some of the posative and negative influences in their lives.

Rachel's Challenge made approximately 2,500 live presentations to about 900,000 people nationwide in 2010.

The particular speaker at this presentation explained that Rachel's Challenge is funded through donations and employs a small army of speakers around the United States.

He also went on to say that Scott's brother, Craig Scott, is planning on making a full length film about his sistersin the near future.

Rachel's Challenge is so well renowned for its work that former president George W. Bush sent a special letter in 2006 to Rachel's Challenge acknowledging that the presentations are for the good of the United States.