When one of the students at my school walked in the door last Thursday morning and saw the above poster on the wall in the main foyer, he said that he almost cried tears of joy. Another student said he smiled and took a photo of it with his cell phone. The poster was there among banners for other clubs as part of "club rush", where students advertise the clubs that are available for the kids to participate in at our school.
Let's back up to Wednesday morning. I asked a student if she had ever asked the administration if the club was approved enough for them to participate in rush. She immediately went down to talk to him, and came back with great news. His response was that he thought everything was go, and that he saw no reason why they should not be able to participate along with the other clubs.
So, Wednesday afternoon, 4 or 5 of them got together and created these masterpieces.
As you can see, the name of the club that we decided on was RAIN, which stands for "Rising Against Intolerance Now".
Today some of the students at my school (probably 10 or 15) met together to informally vote on officers and then get some plans in place for their first official meeting next week.
The adult supervisors were a bit awkward, trying to give them guidelines and advice, while still adhering to the fact that a non-curriculum club must be run by the students. After the last of them had finally left the room, excited and happy that this was actually happening, the 3 of us stood by the door, just as excited, almost like we were in a dream. I just know this will make a difference to the students, families, and community.
