Minnesotan takes drive against youth gun violence to Colorado

Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
August 13, 1999, Friday, Metro Edition
Chuck Haga; Staff Writer

Mary Lewis Grow, the Northfield, Minn., woman who started the Student Pledge Against Gun Violence in 1996, will begin this year's national pledge drive today at a Denver high school, not far from Littleton's Columbine High.

The massacre at Columbine increased her determination to spread the pledge, Grow said.

"Like so many other people, I feel despair at the continuing violence," she said. "But I believe more than ever that something different is going to come out of the events of the past year. The public is so ready to be part of something to create change."

Grow will be joined at today's kickoff by two members of a Colorado high-school delegation that met recently in Washington, D.C., with President Clinton and members of Congress.

More than 1 million students signed the pledge last year, and Grow hopes to top that this year with help from a student-designed public-service announcement for television.

Students will be asked to sign the pledge on Oct. 21 and make that "a day of national concern" and discussion, Grow said.

"The common day and the common promise can unite students in their resolve to end gun violence," she said.

The high-school pledge states:

"I will never bring a gun to school. I will never use a gun to settle a dispute. I will use my influence with my friends to keep them from using guns to settle disputes.

"My individual choices and actions, when multiplied by young people throughout the country, WILL make a difference. Together, by honoring this pledge, we can reverse the violence and grow up in safety."

A separate pledge for elementary students states: "If I see a gun, I won't touch it. I will remember that any gun I see might be loaded. I know how important it is to keep myself safe."

Grow, who calls gun violence "a scar on our national psyche," helped organize a 1994 display of 38,000 pairs of shoes in Washington to dramatize how many gun deaths occur each year in the United States.

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LOAD-DATE: August 13, 1999