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Rachel’s Challenge

Earlene Ward

(Updated: Friday, January 15, 2010, 4:23 PM)

The community is welcome to attend meetings Jan. 19 or 20 to learn more about the Rachel’s Challenge program being offered through Yosemite Unified School District.

Rachel’s Challenge will be held January 19 at Yosemite High School, taking the place of Challenge Day that the school hosted in the past. There will be an all-school assembly for students during the day and the community meeting that night from 7-8 in the YHS Theater, Road 427, Oakhurst.

January 20, seventh and eighth grade students from Coarsegold and Rivergold elementary schools will attend an assembly at YHS and that night, from 7-8, there will be a community meeting in the multi purpose room at Rivergold on Road 400, Coarsegold.

YHS Student Support Facilitator Valarie Shaffer, who is coordinating the event, says she is very excited about the new program, which she calls a bullying and violence abatement program.

She says Rachel’s Challenge is “about starting a chain reaction of compassion and caring and about building a chain with notes about the good things people do.”

Shaffer’s goal is to build a chain that stretches from Oakhurst to Coarsegold. One school built a chain that was three miles long. “I’m very competitive,” Shaffer says, “I know we can do better than that!”

Rachel Scott was the first person killed at Columbine High School April 20, 1999.

Information from Rachel’s Challenge notes “Rachel’s acts of kindness and compassion coupled with the contents of her six diaries have become the foundation for the most life – changing school program in America.”

Rachel’s Challenge was founded by her father in 2000.

Shaffer will be working throughout the mountain community to raise funds to support the program. Donations can be sent to Shaffer at Yosemite High School, 50200 Road 427, Oakhurst, CA 93644. Checks should be made out to Yosemite High School with a notation that the money is for Rachel’s Challenge.

For more information about the community meetings, or the program, call Shaffer at 683-4667 ext. 224.