Rachel Silver

Friends of Rachel Club (FOR club for short), was designed to continue the chain reaction of Rachel’s Challenge. The challenge was presented to Van Buren high school students and community members on Dec. 4, in memory of Rachel Joy Scott, a high school student gunned down in the 1999 Columbine shooting that killed 12 others. The presentation focussed on her message of spreading kindness and compassion that would eventually circle the globe. This club consists of people who want to have a positive impact on the people around them and their entire school and make it a happy, comfortable, safe, and accepting environment.

Hopefully, since the presentation, there have been many acts of kindness witnessed around the school, big or small. This small group of students will soon be acting on projects around the school. They have made plans to hang banners, write compliments on post-it-notes and leave them around the school, and write letters of appreciation to people who may not see that very often.

After the core group (students from the training) meets for a second time and decide on leadership, a first project, and other items of business, they will be opening the club up to anyone in the school who is interested. But don’t think that anyone can get in. To show your commitment, the group has a sort of positive initiation that students will have to partake in, so that kids don’t join to just get out of class.

FOR Club plans to reach out to people, step outside of their comfort zones to help someone or give them a compliment. It may not seem like much, but there are no small insults and there are no small compliments either. If you are interested in joining, listen in the announcements for the first open meeting date. They seem to have big things in store for Van Buren.