One bullet pierced Rachel Scott’s bookbag, hitting her journal. Another hit her directly, the shooters taking her young life. Rachel would have been 26 today, her classmate said.

Now, 10 years after the shooting and miles across the country, parents sat motionless in the audience sniffling, whimpering, choking back tears.

Some moms said they thought Rachel could have been one of their kids, shot and killed.

Luckily, for Tenafly parents and schoolteachers they were only watching a video of the Columbine shooting. It wasn’t really happening at their school to their kids.

But it could.

When the lights came back on in Tenafly Middle School Feb.27, students and parents were posed a question and asked to take on a new challenge — school shootings are a new reality but how can we stop them from happening here?

Courtesy of Rachel Scott’s story and some wise words from her classmate, students said they are better prepared to stop violence before it happens, not only in their schools but in everyday life.

"We’re all kind of like her in a way," said 13-year-old student Ali Lifferty.

"A shooting can happen anywhere. You don’t know what’s going through everyone’s mind. We have to make sure it doesn’t happen here."

Although the Columbine massacre claimed 17-year-old Rachel’s life, her journal, complete with a bullet hole, was saved. The words inside it would be used to inspire many students across the country to think twice about their own words, actions and how they treat others around them.

The program is called Rachel’s Challenge, a nationwide awareness campaign aimed at stopping bullying, prejudice and the school violence that can grow from it.

On Feb. 26 and 27, more than 100 students from Tenafly Middle School and the high school participated in the Challenge by listening to the story of Rachel’s death and the awareness that came from it, a chain reaction to school violence that spread across the United States.

Classmate Nicole Nowlen was shot at Columbine but survived. Last week, she told the local crowd of the connection she had with the shooting and what she learned from Rachel, a girl who was less fortunate than her that day.

Jokingly, Nowlen chalked up her surviving the shooting to being overweight.

"I try to see the humor in it cause for years I had a hard time with it," she said, under a backdrop of images of Rachel, her brother and news reports from the day of the shooting at Columbine flashing across a screen on the auditorium’s stage.

Nowlen told many stories about the ironies of Rachel’s untimely death but focused more on five goals Rachel wrote in her journal, in her "code of ethics" term paper and tried to fulfill in her own life.

She recommended students take on five challenges to prevent a shooting from happening at their school and urged parents to reinforce them at home.

One, get rid of judgment and prejudice in your everyday life. Rachel wrote about helping a fellow classmate who was getting bullied in the hallway. Although she was little, Rachel challenged the older boys.

Two, dare to dream. Nowlen recommended recording your feelings and goals like Rachel did. Writing goals down can form practical images to accomplish, she said.

Three, choose positive images to look up to. "The choices you make affect the person you will become," Nowlen said.

Four, little acts of kindness reap huge results. Nowlen said Rachel used to go up to girls sitting alone at lunch and ask them to join her and her friends. When the girl said no, Rachel got her friends to move and sit at the girl’s table so she wouldn’t feel outcast.

"A simple act of kindness, like talking to someone in the lunchroom, can make a difference," Nowlen said.

And lastly, "start your own chain reaction. Tell people you love them every day," Nowlen said.

The evening of Feb.27, it was the parents’ turn. More than 200 moms and dads left the auditorium with a new promise — to protect their kids and keep Rachel’s five challenges a hot topic at home.

"It petrified me," said Melanie Zingler, a mother of three teenage daughters. "Seeing how fragile life is and thinking any one of the victims could have been mine.  It’s not the same world it used to be."

A mother of two, Harriet Nachum said, "it doesn’t hurt to remind them how fragile life is and how these kids are just like kids here."

By the end of the program, the mothers were disturbed by the many stories Nowlen told them about the lasting memories she had of Columbine.

She told of a teacher, the only one to die at Columbine, walking up to the shooters and trying to convince them to stop.

She told of Rachel’s brother, Craig, who watched his African-American friend Isaiah get called racial slurs then shot. Craig didn’t know it at the time, but he ran past the body of his sister as he escaped school that day.

And lastly, Nowlen told the story of a man from across the country who had never met the Scott family but knew what Rachel wrote in her journal the day she was shot and killed.

An image of tears dripping on a flower came to the man, and he called Rachel’s dad in Colorado, Nowlen said.

Rachel’s dad didn’t know what the man was talking about and he hung up the phone. Days later, police released Rachel’s bookbag back to her family. Inside, they found her journal containing the last words she ever wrote.

On the last page was a drawing. It was eyes, tearing blood, dripping on a flower.

For Tenafly students and parents, Rachel’s Challenge may mean they never would have to tell their own stories of sadness because of a school shooting.

"Tomorrow, I’m going to help a younger student. It’s everybody’s responsibility to prevent it," Lafferty said.

E-mail: Kumka@northjersey.com or call 201-894-6705