One day before prom, in an advanced placement government classroom at Oakdale High School southeast of Frederick, Maryland, a group of students gathered to film the school’s morning announcement.
“Students Against Violence Everywhere, also known as SAVE, has decided to highlight our trusted adults, and we want you to vote to showcase our positive school climate and show appreciation for our teachers,” said Evie Graham, president of SAVE at Oakdale.
And while it might not be obvious, that announcement was part of a student-led effort to prevent the worst from happening at Oakdale High School.
During her freshman year at Oakdale, Graham became a “promise leader” with the Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit founded by several family members of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, which claimed 26 lives in December 2012.
Through Sandy Hook Promise, Graham learned how young people can engage and teach others about preventing gun violence. Soon, she founded a SAVE club at her school.
“The second I saw that [there was a club], I kind of knew that I wanted to start one here,” said Graham, now a senior at Oakdale. “I like putting action behind my words. I, like, vividly remember when I was a sophomore [or] freshman, and I would see, every single day, a new headline come across my phone [about gun violence]. I would get so frustrated.”
The Sandy Hook Promise mission is to “educate and empower youth and adults to prevent violence in schools, homes and communities,” according to its website. Founded in 2013, it’s an organization that draws praise from those who have studied its work — even though researchers find it difficult to prove that any one effort could curb school violence.
“It’s, I think, important that schools, as they’re adapting programs like this, where you’re trying to get to create connections, that people are comfortable speaking up — that you can demonstrate to students that their concerns are going to be heard, that they’re going to be validated,” said Justin Heinze, an associate professor of health behavior and health equity at the University of Michigan who has studied Sandy Hook Promise and its effectiveness.
Read the full article about the study:
Kathryn Carley, March 27, 2026, New England students utilize Sandy Hook Promise tools for safety, BigNewsNetwork.com, https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/278946734/new-england-students-utilize-sandy-hook-promise-tools-for-safety