Columbine Shooting Victim's Uncle Brings Rachel's Challenge to Avon

The uncle of the first Columbine victim shot in the school shooting 14 years ago visited two Avon schools early this week to promote her message of being kind to others.

"She said people never know how far a little kindness can go," Larry Scott said of his niece, Rachel. "She was just an unusual 17-year-old girl that believed in making a difference in the world in a positive way."

Starting at the middle school Monday during the day and visiting the high school that evening and Tuesday morning, Scott asked students and parents to commit to the five steps of Rachel's Challenge.

Rachel Scott's father, Darrell created the challenge so that his daughter's compassionate perspective on life could make a difference to others. 

"She didn't know the five challenges personally, but she lived it," Larry Scott said before his presentation to parents and students at the high school Monday night. 

The challenge – looking for the best in others, dreaming big, choosing positive influences, speaking with kindness and starting your own chain reaction – draws from Rachel's story, testimony from friends and her personal writing.

"Rachel's challenge has made a huge difference wherever we go," Scott said. "We start kindness clubs all over America in schools. We have five or six thousand right now in America. Last year we did 2,300 schools just in America and we were in 10 other countries besides the United States. Over two-and-a-half million students heard her story last year alone and that's every year now."

Avon Middle School Principal Marco Famiglietti said that the town's youth service program brought the Rachel's Challenge program to town.

"This fits perfectly with everything we're doing with the advisory program we're doing at the middle school and the high school," Famiglietti said.

Rachel Scott often told friends she was going to die young and make a lasting impact on the world. Both of those came to fruition for the 17-year-old on that fateful day, April 20, 1999 in the Colorado high school. But out of the tragedy, she has already reached millions through Rachel's Challenge, preventing several suicides.

"She had a lot of wisdom for a 17 year old and did a lot of amazing things for a 17 year old. It's beyond her years," Larry Scott said. 

Anne Frank was a big influence on Rachel Scott. The Columbine tragedy happened on Adolf Hitler's birthday, a date specifically chosen by the killers and a date that ironically connects Scott and Frank, as pointed out in the presentation. The diaries of both girls have touched many people.  

In many of Rachel's writings, the prevailing message was to be kind to others, from diary entries and a school essay on her code of ethics to two hands she drew on her desk along with the words, "These hands belong to Rachel Joy Scott and will someday touch millions of people's hands."

Middle school students committed to the challenge earlier on Monday.

"You could hear a pin drop," Famiglietti said. "Every student in attendance was captured by his message."

The last thing Rachel drew that day before she was killed eating her lunch outside the school was a rose growing from 13 tear droplets cascading from a young girl's eyes. There were 13 victims in the school shooting. Stranger yet, an out-of-state stranger called Rachel's parents before her father laid eyes on the drawing to tell them he had a dream about that very image.

The picture was one of my things Larry Scott shared with a captivated audience of parents and students on Monday night in his presentation of Rachel's story at Avon High School.

Larry Scott – whose two children and nephew made it out of the school alive the day of the Columbine shooting after losing Rachel – touched on the incident, including showing live school camera footage of the shooting and documentary clips about Columbine.

"It was very negative at first for all of us. It was a very negative experience and it hit us in the face basically," Scott said. "We were reeling from it for several months. Now we've turned tragedy into something triumphant."

But the bulk of his talk was about Rachel and who she was before the tragedy happened. 

"The message was spot on and that's you can make a difference and you can be the difference," Famiglietti said. 

More information on Rachel's Challenge is available on the program website, www.rachelschallenge.org.