NORMAL -- Peter Gillen was tired of the fights he saw at Lincoln Community High School. They were distracting him from his ability to learn. As a senior, he wanted to make the school safer and reduce bullying.

At Normal Community West High School, junior Ruth Kenney wanted to feel safer after reading about the anniversary of the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings and other incidents of school violence. A member of the student council, she helped write a grant to bring Rachel's Challenge to her school.

Rachel's Challenge was created in honor of Rachel Joy Scott, the first student of 13 people killed at Columbine High School before the two gunmen took their own lives in 1999. The program seeks to reduce violence at schools by increasing awareness and encouraging students to treat each other how they would like to be treated.

"Everyone has had incidents," Kenney said. "We are in high school. Everyone is a culprit. It's not just one group of people."

Everyone, she said, can start a chain reaction of kindness.

Gillen's and Kenney's efforts, along with their adult mentors, brought Rachel's Challenge to the two schools.

"Our school had a very large increase in fights and acts of violence last spring, so it (the program) immediately caught my attention as a way to help decrease this new trend," said Liz Schneider, a Lincoln teacher and student council sponsor.

"I remember seeing a couple of fights a day. That's unusual for a school our size (900 students)," said Gillen. "It drifted away from a learning environment."

Both campuses invited students from other schools, and Lincoln held a community program to reach even more people.

Brandie Orozco of Colorado, a friend of the Scott family, spoke last week to students at both schools. She supplemented her words with a video that echoed with the shots fired by two angry students on April 20, 1999.

It moved some students to tears.

"I thought it was very touching and it will have a positive impact," said Dhalvin Gomez-Bonner, a Normal West senior.

Orozco also talked about Rachel's kind acts to others before her death and read journal excerpts about how Rachel wanted to have a positive impact on others.

The assemblies are just part of the program, which includes training student leaders and creating clubs to continue the work.

"Our goal is to get students to reflect on their daily actions," added Mike Donnelly of Project Oz, who is working with Normal West's Helping Youth Progress and Excel (HYPE) program.

Olivia Newbold, a special education teacher at West, saw Rachel's Challenge work in Las Vegas when she was a teacher there because of the follow-up of ideas introduced at the assembly, she said.

Students signed up for more training and others signed a poster saying they would take on at least five challenges: To eliminate prejudice and look for good in everyone; dare to dream; set goals/keep a journal; choose good influences; and start a chain reaction of kindness.

Asked which she would tackle, Normal West student Sara Motsinger replied, "All of them."

On the Net: http://www.rachelschallenge.org