“After the Texas elementary school shooting, like everyone else I was sick to my stomach and mad. I have 5 little grandchildren and cannot image what I would do if something like that happened in their school. I also realize our community is just as vulnerable; these shootings can take place anywhere. I decided that instead of just talking about it I wanted to do something.

I called the chief of police and Rick Loving of the Police Foundation, and asked to meet with them.  When we met we bounced around ideas and decided to see if we could put a task force together with the goal to make our schools as safe as possible. I started calling different people and asking if they would be willing to get involved. The task force was formed from those people gracious enough to donate their time.

My dream is that this task force becomes a model that can be shared with other communities and really have an impact on school safety. I hope at some point we can go to the state legislature and convince them that we need to start spending more funds on school safety and security. Perhaps even put new building codes in place to enhance safety and a program to retrofit existing schools. In my opinion the mental health and gun issues are long term fixes while we can improve school safety now.”

- Rick Read, Founder, Safe Schools Lynchburg