CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. — Sarah Chadwick stood outside the Alabama State House in August 2018, shouting at a senator through a megaphone. As rain poured on the protesters, mascara ran down her face. Her poster began to fall apart.

It was her 17th birthday.

Chadwick was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when 17 students and faculty were killed in a mass shooting in February 2018. After the March for Our Lives, she spent the summer driving across Florida and neighboring states for the Road for Change tour. The State House in Montgomery was one of the tour stops.

“That’s a pretty good start to my 17th year on this Earth. I feel like this was very fitting,” Chadwick said.

The student activist has since moved more than 1,000 miles away from Parkland, Florida, to enroll at Syracuse University as a freshman citizenship and civic engagement major.

During her first eight weeks at SU, Chadwick and her friends started a Students Demand Action chapter on campus that aims to reduce gun violence. She will continue to be part of the March for Our Lives organization she helped create. But she plans to use her time at SU to explore other interests.

She said she hopes SU can be where she finds new passions or works on different kinds of activism, like climate change. She now volunteers at a local Planned Parenthood clinic.

Growing up, Chadwick had never heard of SU and focused on getting into state schools. She was inspired to attend SU by Gaby Levy, an SU alumna who works at McCann, an advertising agency in New York City. Levy worked with Chadwick and other March for Our Lives members to create statewide and national campaigns.

Chadwick spoke at the D.C. protest, but was so nervous she couldn’t sleep the night before. Codie Yan | Staff photographer

Another appealing aspect of SU was its balance of school spirit without feeling too much like a big state school, she said. She also appreciates how the university has an active political environment. In all, Chadwick wants a regular college experience.

“It’s going to be my first time moving away from home,” she said. “I want it to be that kind of college experience, and kind of finding my independence, finding my group of people and making those connections.”

Chadwick’s activism has moved her to do work she never imagined she was capable of. She considered herself shy before becoming one of the faces of a national movement. Social media became an outlet for her.

“I’m not gonna lie, but on Twitter, that was like a different Sarah,” she said.

After Emma Gonzalez gave her “We Call BS” speech in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Jaclyn Corin, a co-founder of the movement, invited Chadwick to meet with other Stoneman Douglas students who wanted to bring more attention to gun violence.

The Women’s March in Washington, D.C., was an inspiration for the Stoneman Douglas students, who first called their group “Never Again,” she said.  Chadwick spoke at the D.C. protest, but was so nervous she couldn’t sleep the night before. She planned the majority of her speech in the shower at 3 a.m. 

As the students’ activism gained national attention, Chadwick sometimes missed weeks of school due to interviews or public speaking events. She and other survivors were working on national campaigns to mobilize voters and policymakers to change gun laws.

Levy said she wanted to help Chadwick in whatever capacity the organization needed to bring more awareness to the cause.

She sees a lot of herself in Chadwick, which made it easier to connect with her and see her as a younger sister, Levy said. Seeing Chadwick thrive under pressure made it clearer to her how influential she can be.

“When you’re surrounded by people like that, there’s no denying the power that they have on others,” Levy said.

Levy’s ad team worked with Chadwick to calculate the price of each student’s life based on the millions of dollars politicians have accepted from the National Rifle Association.

 

.@marcorubio pic.twitter.com/yxuXCRGCiE

— Sarah Chadwick (@Sarahchadwickk) April 2, 2018

When students returned to Stoneman Douglas after the shooting, some wore clear backpacks with price tags based on the ad team’s calculations. The price tags were part of a protest against a new school policy that required students to use clear backpacks.

Managing the responsibilities of the organization became a challenge for Chadwick. Absences from school were hard to manage.

Students missed school following the shooting, and the landfall of Hurricane Irma canceled additional school days. Both students and teachers had to catch up in a short time period for final exams. Adding to the time-crunch were the news cameras stationed outside Stoneman Douglas for months. 

For Chadwick, these changes were a major adjustment, especially in the middle of the semester.

“There’s no plan — That if there’s a school shooting, then what’s that going to do for the rest of the school year?”

Many students and teachers needed to be relocated because the shooting mostly occurred in one building that held about 900 students. Other classrooms had to be shared to make up for the lost space.

Chadwick’s senior year was less stressful with fewer travel events, she said, but the students still felt somber. The incoming freshman class, which her brother was part of, felt this in particular as the first class to enter Stoneman Douglas since the shooting.

Despite having opposing political views, members of the Parkland community felt more united, Chadwick said. At Stoneman Douglas, petty drama among students was resolved or no longer mattered. She matured as a person.

“I don’t take as much for granted anymore. I don’t hold grudges. I’m very much more like, ‘let’s put it past us,’” she said.

Now at SU, Chadwick still worries about the possibility of a mass shooting. Parkland was one of the safest cities in the nation. As gun violence happens almost anywhere, she won’t truly feel safe because of the political climate, she said.

She recalled how earlier this summer, her friends at the University of Central Florida received a vague alert from campus police urging students to take shelter after reports of a person with a gun. The weapon turned out to be a BB gun.

For Chadwick, finding her independence and a group of friends is a top priority. But she said once she’s settled down in Syracuse she’ll try to continue more of her activism. Courtesy of Sarah Chadwick

Chadwick was shocked that her friends had to go through the same trauma twice. The campus alert also shows how common gun violence is, she said.

Through the work done from the movement, she said, there has been some progress in gun legislation. In the days following the shooting at Stoneman Douglas, red flag laws were implemented in Florida, which gives courts the authority to confiscate guns from individuals deemed a threat to themselves or others. The prominence of gun reform in the coming 2020 presidential elections also gives Chadwick hope.

Daniel Williams, a second-year student at Florida State University, traveled with Chadwick for a portion of the Road to Change tour. Williams was one of the few March for Our Lives members who went to college right after graduating from Stoneman Douglas. Given their shared experience of being in the public eye, he said it’s important for Chadwick and other college students to take time for themselves.

Williams, who still helps the organization with its social media and design, said finding a balance between college and activism is beneficial. “Don’t feel scared or feel guilty to dedicate time for yourself because you can’t lend a helping hand, if you’re drowning as well,” he said.

For Chadwick, finding her independence and a group of friends is a top priority. But she said once she’s settled down in Syracuse she’ll try to continue more of her activism.

“I’m definitely still going to be involved just not … I don’t think to the extent that I used to be,” Chadwick said. “I have to focus more on myself going into college.”

Published on October 13, 2019 at 11:09 pm

Contact Diana: dianar@dailyorange.com