This story appeared in The Columbian and on Columbian.com January 12, 2011.

Rachel Scott was eating lunch with a friend on the lawn outside of her high school’s library when two fellow students approached and opened fire.

Scott died instantly. Her lunch companion was critically wounded. In all, the two gunmen killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 24 others before taking their own lives at Columbine High School that day.

A small crowd heard the story of April 20, 1999, and the effort that grew from it during the Rachel’s Challenge program at Union High School on Monday night.

The program is a nonprofit initiative started by Scott’s father and stepmother with the goal of creating a positive change in the way people value each other. That idea grew out of Scott’s death and the life mottos she left behind with friends, journals, essays and even a note written on the back of a dresser.

The presentations at Union were organized months ago by the school’s leadership students as the kickoff to a week of cultural awareness. When those plans were made, the students didn’t expect the deeper meaning Rachel’s Challenge would have after the weekend’s shootings in Tucson that left six people dead and 14 others wounded, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.

“The Arizona shootings made me think of Columbine,” said Valerie Mitchell, who worked at a different Colorado high school in 1999. “Then my daughter came home today and said I had to come see this.”

Union students saw the Rachel’s Challenge presentation during the school day. Monday night’s program was for parents and community members.

Mitchell said the Arizona shootings refresh the thoughts and feelings she has from that time. “Those memories never, ever go away,” she said.

Chris Hall, who conducted the Rachel’s Challenge presentations at Union, said the young suspect in the Arizona shootings might not be much different from the two student gunmen at Columbine.

Hall said Rachel’s Challenge aims to put more kindness and compassion into the world, especially through schools.

“If society is more full of compassion, maybe the violence won’t happen,” he said.

Hall also said there is a correlation between public acts of violence and interest in the Rachel’s Challenge program. He said people often realize the need for kindness and compassion after violent acts.

Rachel’s Challenge consists of five choices and characteristics that Hall said Scott not just believed in, but lived, until she died that day at her suburban Denver school.

Scott believed in eliminating prejudice, setting goals, dreaming, using kind words and small acts to have big impacts, and telling people what they mean to you.

Hall said Scott always told people she would make an impact on the world and that her premonition has been proven true through Rachel’s Challenge and the presentations that share Scott’s life lessons.

Union student body adviser Megan Baxter said it’s important for students to see this presentation because many of them were quite young when Columbine happened and they don’t have the perspective of that tragedy in living everyday.

Rachel’s Challenge had clear takeaways for students who saw the presentation during the school day and again Monday night.

“Just doing the little things can make a big difference,” said junior Chelsea Christian.

For another student, the actions aren’t the only important factor. “It’s not just doing something or saying something,” junior Elizabeth Reeves said. “It’s the meaning behind those things that’s important.”

Through the presentation, Hall made clear that Scott was a normal person who was intentional in her thoughts and actions with the hope of starting a chain reaction of kindness and compassion.

“Rachel didn’t just say and write these things,” Hall said. “She lived them.”