‘Rachel’s Challenge’ comes to North Central High School

INDIANAPOLIS — In a room filled with hundreds of North Central High School seniors, every eye was turned toward the main stage of the school auditorium.

On-screen was footage of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado. The sobering footage is something none of the high school seniors in the room were even alive for.

”I was definitely tearing up, as this is something that I’ve heard about in the past but has never really occurred to me. Especially with the recent Georgia shooting, it all started coming back,” said Paige Fleming, a senior at North Central.

The footage began a presentation on Rachel’s Challenge. A campaign that has been spread to millions at hundreds of schools across the country. It’s based on the life of Rachel Scott, the first victim of the Columbine shooting on April 20, 1999.

”She wanted to start a chain reaction of kindness and compassion and she did that by going to school every day,” said JB Braden.

Braden has traveled the country sharing Rachel’s message of kindness and compassion over the past 16 years.

Through the hour-long presentation, Braden taught the hundreds of seniors watching in person, and the rest of the student body watching virtually, about Rachel and why her message has lived on to touch so many lives even more than 25 years after her death.

”We have seen over the years where this presentation has prevented school shootings,” Braden said. “As recently as in Louisville, Kentucky, back in the spring. We did a presentation there, after that presentation we found out one of the kids came forward and told the administration about a student planning a shooting.”

The hope is the message of kindness and compassion will help to fight the roots of where violence first starts in schools.

”When you do that, those people who are really going through a different time, where they are almost at that edge and getting pushed, just maybe those words can bring them back,” Braden said.

Even if these students were far from being born when Columbine happened, they’re still very familiar with the threat of school shootings.

”I do feel a little bit unsafe at times, I never know when someone has something going on at home,” Fleming said.

That’s why active shooter drills and increased school safety are something at the forefront of everyone’s minds. Rachel’s Challenge is a refreshing approach to trying to make schools safer.

”I like this approach. It’s a little different flavor than having to evacuate or some of the things we do on a regular basis,” said North Central High School Principal Jagga Rent. “It doesn’t have to be intimidating, it can be talking about kindness.”

At the end of the presentation, Braden challenged all of the students to accept Rachel’s Challenge by looking for the best in others, dreaming big, choosing positive influences, speaking with kindness and starting their own chain reaction of compassion. Fleming took the message to heart.

”Even if I just give a compliment to someone, or they give a compliment to me or I tell someone they did well on a test,” Fleming said. “Those small things add up and create that chain reaction.”

Rachel’s Challenge will also be presented at each of the Washington Township middle schools over the next few weeks.

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