Rachel's Rally 2009

Filed under Community Relations on Sunday, May 24, 2009 by Author: Brad Tompkins.

On Wednesday, May 20, approximately 4,000 students, teachers, families, community members and other guests joined together to celebrate kindness and compassion with the second annual Rachel's Rally. Another 1,251 from around the world joined live via webcast and others tuned in on Channel 43, the district's cable television station. The Rally was held at 7:00 p.m. at Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall.

After a brief time of introductions, fifth and sixth graders from all Rockwall elementary campuses paraded into the auditorium carrying thousands of Kindness and Compassion friends. Throughout the year, students and Rockwall ISD staff members across the district have been recording kind acts and good deeds on these little paper figures that represent "The Power of One." Over 100,000 KC Friends were presented at the rally through various methods including falling from the ceiling and hanging from three massive descending chandeliers.

To emphasize the effect this program has on the students, short video clips describing Rachel's Challenge at several of the elementary campuses were shown. Friends of Rachel representatives Katherine McBee and Drew Hollingshead gave campus perspectives from Rockwall High School and Rockwall-Heath High School and Rachel's Challenge founder Darrell Scott addressed the audience. Elementary counselor Lori Allums led the audience in a rousing rendition of the song "Lean on Me" and community leader Greg Beauchamp ended the evening by challenging the whole audience to become back-up singers (with black lights and white gloves) as John Davis sang the "Power of One--Rockwall Version."