10/22/2007

By MICHAEL STRAND

Salina Journal

GYPSUM -- "Look at all the pink ones," was Anna Feyerherm's comment Friday evening as students from Southeast of Saline School started unfurling their paper chain out of boxes and barrels just before halftime at the last home football game of the season.

The chain, made from three different colors of construction paper, was a takeoff on a familiar quote from Rachel Scott, the first student killed in the shootings at Columbine High School. After Scott's death, her family created "Rachel's Challenge," a program that encourages students to be kinder to one another.

Southeast of Saline has had several programs about Rachel's Challenge, and students there started the Friends of Rachel organization, which has taken on numerous charitable projects over the past year.

At the beginning of the school year, several classes began the "Chain of Kindness" project, selling $2 strips of paper, which once sold were stapled into interlocking loops, creating a chain.

Their goal was to create a chain long enough to stretch the length of the football field by Oct. 19.

At each home football game this fall, students have stretched the chain out to gauge their progress.

"The first time, it was about 20 yards," said sophomore Megan Kincaid-Heidel, a sophomore who's worked the table selling the links at each home game. "I thought that was a lot -- but that we've still got a long ways to go."

Before the game started, and based on an estimate of 12 links per yard, the effort had reached 90 yards or so, Kincaid-Heidel said: "I think we're going to make it."

At 12 links per yard, a 100-yard chain would raise $2,400.

"We thought it was going to be tough," said senior Brittany Obermeyer. "We still needed about 10 yards, but we made that before the game started."

Besides being a way to keep score, the chain "is a symbolic thing," Kincaid-Heidel said. People who bought a link were encouraged to write their names on it, and "it shows how many lives it's touched."

The students were selling three different colored links.

Pink was to benefit the family of Chloe Watson Feyerherm, a 7-year-old Salina girl who was diagnosed last year with an inoperable brain tumor; Chloe died Wednesday.

Blue was to benefit Wade and Jeanne Caselman, whose baby David died after 40 hours this past August, and purple to benefit future "Friends of Rachel" projects

The chain wasn't the only fundraiser; students have sold bracelets, and held bake sales as well, and met several times with Chloe and her mother Heidi Feyerherm and even adopted a ring-tailed lemur at Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure in Chloe's name after finding out she liked monkeys.

The idea has taken off, said teacher Juanelle Garretson, a sponsor of the project, who said she and counselor Judy White have been asked to talk about it at upcoming "Friends of Rachel" conferences, and adding that they've sold many links to people from other schools attending Southeast's football games this fall.

"They're taking the idea back with them," Garretson said.

"They're really excited to see how long it it is," said freshman Ariel Douglas. "I'm excited, too. It's amazing what people can do when they decide to help one another.

Douglas and freshman Joey Platt had organized a bake sale at Wal-Mart a few weeks ago that raise $600 for Chloe's cause.

Several of Chloe's relatives, including her aunts Anna and Katrina Feyerherm, and uncle Jon, came to the game to see the final unfurling of the chain -- which was overwhelmingly pink.

"It's so cool that they're doing something like this," Anna Feyerherm said, adding that the chain was to be displayed at Chloe's funeral Saturday.

And yes, the chain stretched from goal-line to goal-line, with plenty of slack.

n Reporter Mike Strand can be reached at 822-1418 or by e-mail at mstrand@salina.com.

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