HONESDALE, NY —  A day to promote “a culture of kindness and acceptance of others” could not have been more apropos.

The sixth annual Wayne County Rachel’s Challenge “Go Orange Day” was proclaimed by the commissioners on October 25. It came in the midst of week brimming with hate and intolerance, which culminated in Pennsylvania.

Two black people were indiscriminately shot and killed by a white gunman in a Kentucky supermarket Wednesday after he failed to gain entrance to black church. The gunman spared a white man he confronted in the store, reportedly saying, “Whites don’t shoot whites.”

Officials intercepted 15 pipe-bombs that were mailed to officials including the Obamas and Clintons and others who have been publicly critical of Donald Trump.

Another white gunman, who reportedly told authorities he just wanted “to kill Jews,” shot and killed 11 worshippers and left four police officers wounded at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday.

Margaret Ennis, director of the Wayne County Office of Behavioral & Developmental Program and Early Intervention (BDP/EI), was the spokesperson for the popular program, which was derived from diary writings of Rachel Joy Scott, a 17-year-old who died in the 1999 Columbine High School shootings. The color orange, chosen for participants T-shirts, has become symbolic for the program.

The challenge is based on five principles: look for the best in others, dream big, choose positive influences, speak with kindness and start your own “chain reaction.” In the past six years, some 12,000 people in county school districts and civic groups in Wayne and the greater Forest City area have participated in rallies, projects and events to start those chain reactions of kindness. “Rachel’s Challenge has shown how simple acts of kindness can affect people,” she said.

“The Challenge has bloomed in Wayne because of the kind of people who live here. Wayne is a very open and easy [county],” Ennis said.

Commissioner Wendell Kay wore his “old-school” first-year challenge T-shirt. He spoke of the program’s durability. “We are often going to retreats for a week; then coming back full of ideas. Then life starts to encroach and we fall back. But after six years, you’re still here. Keep up the good work.”

“Great ideas have great staying power,” said commissioner and former school administrator Joe Adams. “The Wallenpaupack Area School District has plugged into Rachel’s Challenge in a very big way… Your efforts to keep it going are great.”

“Great ideas have great staying power”

In other business, the commissioners approved a fiscal year 2017-18 report detailing spending of Wayne Human Services $2,513,952 block grant; opened and accepted two bids for snow removal services from Beach Lake Construction ($134,680) and Pioneer Construction ($97,137) and referred them to the county engineer; approved an application for 2018 Community Development Block Grant funding; and heard Adams report that negotiations with state officials to seek “an amenable solution for all” about saving the Hankins Dam were continuing, pending the completion of structural and hydrological studies.