Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
June 13, 2001
Columbine survivor's community project a success
Tons of school supplies go to East Timor with help from Richard Castaldo
Jose Ramos-Horta, Nobel Peace Prize winner from East Timor, met with Richard Castaldo, survivor of the Columbine High School shooting, and students from San Jose High Academy and other schools, May 15 in San Francisco.
Castaldo helped in the send off of six-and-a-half tons of school supplies, from San Francisco to Dili, East Timor's capital.
The supplies have been donated by students, in a stunning example of what can happen when hundreds of teenagers log onto the Internet with a set goal in mind.
The event was a re-uniting for Castaldo and Ramos-Horta. The Nobel Laureate was in Denver when the Columbine shooting occurred. He cancelled a speaking engagement to visit Castaldo, who was paralyzed from the waist down after taking nine bullets in the shooting. Today Castaldo is in his first year of college, playing in a band, and has gone on to become a powerful spokesperson for the East Timor campaign, sending the message out to fellow teenagers that the right answer to school violence is to "get busy and make the world a better place."
The project was begun as a collaboration between TheCommunity.com, a web site portal for social responsibility, based in Napa, Calif., and the PeaceJam Foundation in Denver. PeaceJam brings Nobel Laureates together with teenagers in the United States and other parts of the world, in conferences on conflict resolution and social responsibility.
When Ramos-Horta approached PeaceJam with the need for school supplies in his country, they came to TheCommunity.com to arrange an Internet campaign. They expected to get a few hundred boxes.
"We are all floored by what has occurred here," said Mary Wald, president and CEO of TheCommunity.com. "The boxes poured in, from all parts of the U.S. — from elementary schools, high schools, and leading universities. We really had no idea how powerful it would be.
"We believe that this is largely due to Richard, and the ability of students to spread word of mouth through the Internet," she continued. "Richard spoke out to teenagers, right in the middle of the San Diego shooting and the other scares. He stood up and said, `Enough is enough. Let's do something constructive.'"
The East Timor Action Network heard about it on the net and put out a call via e-mail to their members to pitch in books. Some Portuguese teachers heard about it and started drives at their schools.
"It was completely grassroots," Wald said. "This should tell us, while we are sulking over a dot com slump, we haven't even really begun to think yet about what the Internet can do, what can happen because of it, internationally."
"PeaceJam has always been about breaking down barriers, and making good things happen" said Ivan Suvanjieff, founder of PeaceJam. "When we partnered with TheCommunity.com, it opened up a whole new avenue for us. We were able to get that message, get the teenagers talking to each other and pushing it along on a new level.
"Most of them are on the Internet, it's a medium that they are already using to talk to each other, they are at home there. It really became their show. The students took it over and made it happen."
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