Rachel Scott, 17
In the Spring of 2000, I heard Rachel's father, Darrell Scott, speak at a small fundraiser for a local group in Denver. There were about a hundred people in the room, at the most. Darrell was used to speaking to groups of up to 30,000 people in large public arenas. After Rachel was murdered at Columbine, Darrell and his wife, Sandy, founded Rachel's Challenge, with the following mission:
"We exist to inspire, equip and empower every person to create a permanent positive culture change in their school, business and community by starting a chain reaction of kindness and compassion."
Since it's inception, Rachel's Challenge has had the following impact in schools:
3,300 schools (high schools and middle schools)
Multiple stadium and large venue events
50 states and six countries
11,000,000 people reached with the message
Seven documented school shootings/violence prevented
Hundreds of suicides averted
The Rachel's Challenge Summit will be held in Denver, in June of 2010.
"Presentations will focus on creating a safe and productive learning environment by delivering antidotes to violence and bullying."
To learn more about Rachel's Challenge, please go to www.rachelschallenge.org
Here is an excerpt from Darrell's talk, that I attended:
Wow, it's nice to be a living room setting. This is the smallest group I've spoken to, and I told Sandy on the way over, I said, "I think I'm more nervous." So, it's good to be here with you tonight.
So, I'm not... I don't feel motivated to give you a 30,000 people presentation because I, I just want to talk to you a little bit from my heart tonight. My, my agenda is, is, uh, is very simple. It is a spiritual agenda. Uh, I don't think that you're kids in the word today are looking for religion. In fact, they're kind of sick of it. But they are looking for real answers, and they're looking for real people to give them real answers.
Um, Columbine to me, looking back over the last 11 months is, has truly been a spiritual event.
Rachel left with us a series of journals, that would reach my knee if they were stacked from the ground up. One of them, I carry with me, and I never, uh, open this, because I don't want it to get worn out or, or the pages to get frayed. This was in her backpack the day that she was killed. There's a bullet hole that goes halfway through the diary. And it goes in at the spot where she had written on the page, "I won't be labeled as average." And on the front, she wrote these words, "I write not for the sake of glory, not for the sake of fame, not for the sake of success, but for the sake of my soul. Rachael Joy."
And Rachael poured into her journals incredible wisdom for a 17 year old. She poured into it, um, prophetic pictures, prophetic poems. You'll see why I'm saying that later on, that there was a prophetic element about the Columbine tragedy, that she drew a picture of thirty minutes before she was killed. And in the last poem that she wrote, you'll see in her own hand, a portion of that poem that deals with her relationship with God and with her school. And she says in that poem, "God, who will you give to walk with me through these halls of tragedy?"
And out of this terrible, terrible tragedy, over the last 11 months, I personally, with my own eyes, have seen tens of thousands of young people have their lives changed. And I have seen closure come to parents who lost children, come up and talk to me by the sometimes by the dozen. I've seen so much good come out of something that was so horrible. And I know that Rachel would not change anything where she's concerned, because she wanted her life to count. She didn't view herself as average.
From the time she was 12 years old, she had a very clear cut vision of what she wanted in life, and she went after it. And her two greatest desires were to be, uh, an actress and a missionary. Now you go figure that out. I don't know how those two coincide, but ironically through her death she's able.
There's interest in books. There are books that have already been written. There is one called, "Martyr's March," which is about her life, uh, and several more coming out. She'll be seen in television and, and movies, and is constantly, everywhere we go she's usually a lead story in the city that we're in.
But, um, more importantly than that, she's become a missionary. She's been used to see literary hundreds of thousands of people. Her funeral was the largest viewing audience that CNN ever had in its entire history. Um, we've received 25,000 pieces of mail, not counting the phone calls, e-mails. We are constantly, still bombarded, from all over the world, from people whose lives were affected. I used to meet people on airplanes all the time that, uh, my daughter's funeral, they watched it or it affected some member of their family. So, she did have an impact on the world. She only lived 17 years, but it was a full life, and through her death she accomplished things that she wrote about and dreamed about.
So, I want you just to meet Rachel, um, in pictures, Her middle name is Joy, and she was a joy to everybody that knew her. This is from when she was little. (He shows a slide) And you'll notice the tilting of the head. She does this in almost every photograph. It's like a pose that she struck, and as she got older it's almost like her hair got heavier or something, but her head tilts more and more.
Rachal was one those babies, I have five children, and she's one of those that just lights up a room when she walks in. She was the, the fireplug, you know, of our family. And, um, she just had that joy from the time she was just a tiny baby.
This was something I found that is still in her wallet, uh, in her billfold, in her purse after she died. And it's, uh, still hard for me to read. But years ago I had made her, made up little themes, and this was one of them. "Suspected to stealing little boys' hearts and definitely guilty of stealing her dad's heart." And she was guilty of that.
Rachel's mother, Beth Nimmo, started the website, www.racheljoyscott.com
Beth has a new book out entitled, "Through a Mother's Eyes."
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