This High School Senior Found A Way To Honor Students Killed By Gun Violence At Her Graduation

By Christianna Silva


High school graduation is meant to be a monumental occasion filled with pride, positivity, and maybe a little bit of restlessness for what comes next. Yet for some Gen Zers, who have grown up practicing mobile shooter drills and reading about continued incidents of gun violence, the day can turn somber. According to The Washington Post, more than 228,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine, and Gina Warren determined to use her graduation day to honor the lives of these who were killed before they were given the chance to receive their diplomas.


The 18-year-old Teays Valley High School student from Ashville, Ohio, decorated her graduation cap with a scannable QR code that directed users to a website titled: “i graduated. These high school students couldn’t.” The webpage reads: “protect our students. Protect our kids. Protect our neighbors. Protect our families. Protect our companions. Protect our nation,” and goes on to list the names of students who were killed while in school shootings dating back to the Columbine High School shooting in 1999 and by way of the attack on STEM school last week. Her webpage ends with a phone call to action for each person reading to “protect our students. Vote. Everytown.Org. Marchforourlives.Org.”


She plans to wear the cap to her graduation on Sunday so that each person who snaps a picture can accompany her in remembering the victims of violence.


Warren mentioned she wanted to “honor the kids who couldn't graduate,” although since there were at least 144 people killed in school shootings since Columbine, according to the Post, she couldn’t find a way to fit everyone’s names on her cap. That’s why she determined to prepare design a QR code, which she “thought was a little bit more creative.”


“I saw last year immediately following the Parkland shooting a lot of students had decorated their caps orange with the price tag,” Warren told MTV News. “Theirs was a message to the NRA, however I wanted to prepare mine like something with a similar impact on the same topic. I wanted to spread the message to everybody who saw it, not just the NRA or lawmakers.”


And spread the message she did. She shared her effort on Twitter which went viral and amassed more than 91,000 retweets and 322,000 likes. In response, some Twitter users reminded her a number of students she didn't remember to include while other grads asked for the QR code so that they could put it on their caps as well.


The cap isn’t the opening time Warren has used her style sense to take a stand against gun violence. After the 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, she wanted to incorporate orange, the color supporting gun safety, into her prom look. So she pinned an orange ribbon with the word “hope” onto her black dress, swiped on orange makeup, and wrote the word “enough” on her shoes with glitter.


“[Ending gun violence] is something that I really am enthusiastic about and something that I really would like to change,” Warren told MTV News. “I've been fighting for it for a while.”