What you can do to remember the victims of Colorado's Columbine High School shooting, 25 years later

The Columbine High School shooting took place on April 20, 1999, and 25 years later the memories of all those who were killed live on. The tragedy will be on the minds of many people in Colorado as well as across the world this week.

Saturday will mark 25 years since the shooting, which is widely regarded as the first major mass shooting at an American school in the modern era. Live video that was widely broadcast on news channels that day relayed the terror people in Jefferson County experienced in real time. Thirteen lives were lost and countless others were impacted forever.

The victims of the shooting are being remembered in Littleton and across the Denver metro area this week in some private gatherings. There are no public remembrance ceremonies planned, but there is a way that you can actively honor the victims' memories.

Columbine Serves collects reports of service projects worldwide on April 20

In 2019 Colorado's governor proclaimed that April 20 would be forever a Colorado Day of Recommitment to remember the victims.

Columbine families use the day as a way to give back after the outpouring of support and kindness they saw from people across the world. They ask everyone to honor the lives lost by performing an act of kindness in their community.

For the last eight years, Columbine students and staff -- past and present -- have organized a variety of service projects.

Sam Bowersox-Daly is a social studies teacher at Columbine High School and helps organize the event every year with communities all over the world.

"Some are friends of Columbine teachers or students who have gone off to do other things. Some are people who were touched by somebody at Columbine at some point," Bowersox-Daly said. "Every year we hear from folks in Europe, Tanzania. We had a submission the other day from Java, Indonesia."

Anyone can share a report of how they helped their community with Columbine in mind by visiting columbineserves.org.

Visit Clement Park

A permanent memorial to all the victims of the Columbine massacre is located at Robert F. Clement Park, right near to Columbine High School. Everyone is invited to visit the Ring of Remembrance and Wall of Healing anytime to remember the twelve students and one teacher who lost their lives when two students came into the school and started shooting.

The following people lost their lives on that day:

Cassie Bernall
Steven Curnow
Corey DePooter
Kelly Fleming
Matthew Kechter
Daniel Mauser
Daniel Rohrbough
Dave Sanders
Rachel Scott
Isaiah Shoels
John Tomlin
Lauren Townsend
Kyle Velasquez

Clement Park's address is 7306 West Bowles Avenue in Littleton. The memorial is located on the south end of the park.