Rachel Scott was the first person killed at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Her acts of kindness and compassion coupled with the contents of her six diaries became the foundation for one of the most life-changing programs in North America. In one of her diaries Rachel wrote: “I have this theory – that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction of the same. People will never know how far a little kindness can go.” This started “Rachel’s Challenge”. It was meant to have a positive impact on people's lives every day. We encouraged schools and communities to take an active role with us through the Rachel Challenge Project.

We sent thousands of chains out to every school across the province during February, which is Anti-Violence Month in our province. We asked students and teachers to perform as many acts of kindness as they could.  

For every Act of Kindness they completed, a chain link was filled in stating what the act was and then the link was added to the school’s chain. At the end of the month all the schools’ completed chains were returned to us. 

We drew one link from each of the four zones in the province (East, Central, Wedt, and Labrador) at random from the chains submitted. Each winner received a laptop computer and the schools they attended each received $500.00 to be used to offer anti-violence/anti-bullying programs in their schools. 

We then linked all the schools’ chains together to form one very long Chain of Kindness.

More than 100,000 links were sent to us from students in schools all across the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.  

Letters sent to us by some primary and elementary schools indicated that teachers and students noted a lot of changes in the school when the Rachel’s Challenge project was carried out. Many schools asked that we continue the project and expand it to include grades K-12 and we created a Teacher’s Guide with lesson plans that included all grade levels.

This project could not have been completed without the generous support of our corporate partners, the St. John’s Ice Caps Care Foundation and the Williams Family.
 

The links in the Chain of Kindness (front)
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The links in the Chain of Kindness (back)
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More than 100,000 links were returned to us from schools across NL. When all the chains were joined together, they covered the gymnasium floor of a school.
 

Representatives from CCPANL, the RCMP, the RNC, and the St. John’s Ice Caps Care Foundation hold some of the links. 

 

File for Life
 

File for Life began as an initiative of SeniorsNL in partnership with the Paramedic Association of NL, the RCMP, the RNC, and CCPANL. 

CCPANL’s Committees were each given a number of Files for Life to give out in their communities. 

The Clarenville Area and the Trinity Bay North Citizens’ Crime Prevention Committees then fundraised and applied for a grant from the Clarenville Co-Op Members Foundation to purchase File for Life vinyl envelopes to distribute in their communities. Then they met with local first responders (paramedics, police, firefighters, etc.) to let them know to look for it on the front of fridges in homes to which they were called. 

 File for Life is a vinyl envelope with a magnet on the back that attaches to the front of your fridge. It contains the vital medical information that first responders need to help save your life if you are sick or injured at home and unable to speak for yourself. 

The forms contain your medical information, current drugs you have been prescribed, allergies and conditions you have, your family doctor’s contact information, who to contact in case of an emergency, whether you have a DNR order, and everything else that first responders need to give you the best care possible. It goes with you to the emergency room doctor. 

Who Should Have a File for Life?

* Older adults, especially those living alone 

* Anyone with a chronic medical condition

* Anyone with a life-threatening allergy