What school couldn’t use more positivity and coherence among different groups?  The answer to this is none, and after hearing about the Arapahoe School shooting, teachers and students at AHS are working hard to make a change.

Last year a similar shooting took place in Newtown, CT on December 14 in Sandy Hook Elementary School.  After hearing about the shooting, AHS students and teachers stood outside in the formation of a heart to show our feelings towards the shooting. This year, however, the school wanted to try something new.  AHS English teacher Cerena Thomsen, a strong believer in helping and preventing these tragedies, asked her classes how they could make a change.  After many different answers, senior Elizabeth Nemerovski thought that AHS should team up with candy grams, and many other students also decided that they should have hearts with positive messages hung up around the school.

Thomsen couldn’t turn down the idea of teaming up with candy grams, and she believed that in order for the candy cane grams to give off the positive message everyone wanted to receive, everyone needed to receive one. She understood that it might backfire, but she also believed that a positive message is more important then anything else.

“I want to do anything to help people feel valuable and work to eradicate those feelings of depression and harm,” Thomsen said.

Thomsen looked at plenty of foundations to send the money to, but when she came across the Avielle Foundation, she knew that was where the money would go.  This is because it was exactly what she had been working towards: focusing on positivity. The Avielle foundation focuses on researching brains and interactions in the community to stop violence.  The foundation was created by Jennifer and Jeremy Richman to honor their daughter, Avielle Rose Richman, along with the other twenty-six children and educators tragically killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  Thomsen believes that this is an outstanding foundation and would love if everybody checked it out at aviellefoundation.org.

“I believe that all of this is great because it gets everybody into the holiday spirit by making them feel like someone out there does care about them,” Nemerovski said.

Nemerovski and the rest of the Student Senate could not turn down this offer because they didn’t want people to forget about these school tragedies, knowing that another could happen if people don’t do anything about it.  As a school, we are working towards letting everyone know that someone does care about each student and that no one should feel threatened.

The school as a whole seemed to be in the true holiday spirit when break finally came around.  The candy cane grams truly enlightened everyone’s day by giving off the positive messages everyone wanted to receive or give.  As you walked through the halls, you heard and saw people of all ages joyfully talking about their messages.

“I couldn’t have been more excited about giving and receiving candy cane grams!” said freshman Juliette Woodrow.  “And I really do think it made a huge difference.”