"Nurturing, Healing, Love" — The Story of Scarlett Lewis and the Choose Love Movement

A Six-Year-Old's Last Message That Changed Millions of Lives

The Morning of December 14, 2012

On the morning of Friday, December 14, 2012, six-year-old Jesse Lewis woke up in his home in Newtown, Connecticut, had breakfast with his mother Scarlett Lewis, and scribbled something on the kitchen chalkboard before heading off to Sandy Hook Elementary School.

He never came home.

That day, a twenty-year-old gunman entered the school and killed 20 first-grade students and 6 staff members in one of the deadliest school shootings in American history. Jesse was among the children who lost their lives.

But what emerged from the horror of that day — both from Jesse's final moments and from the message he left behind — would become one of the most powerful stories of love triumphing over hate in modern America.

"Run!" — A Six-Year-Old Hero's Last Word

According to survivors, during a brief pause when the gunman's weapon jammed, Jesse shouted a single word to his classmates: "Run!"

Nine children fled to safety because of Jesse's command. The six-year-old boy had chosen, in his final conscious moment, to think not of himself but of his friends. He did not survive, but his courage saved nine lives.

When Scarlett later learned what her son had done, she was simultaneously shattered and awestruck.

"Jesse was six years old, and he chose courage," she would later say. "He chose love over fear. That's what I needed to do, too."

Three Words on a Chalkboard

When Scarlett returned to her empty house after Jesse's funeral, she found the kitchen chalkboard still bearing her son's handwriting. In the clumsy, oversized letters of a child just learning to write, Jesse had scrawled three words:

"Nurturing Healing Love"

They were vocabulary words Jesse had been learning at school, strung together in a phrase that, to a grieving mother, read like a final testament. Scarlett stood before that chalkboard and wept.

But in that moment of absolute devastation, something crystallized inside her. These three words were not meant for her alone. They were meant for the world.

The Impossible Choice: Forgiveness

What Scarlett did next defied every expectation. Rather than retreating into grief or channeling her pain into rage, she chose to forgive — not just abstractly, but concretely. She forgave the gunman. She met with Peter Lanza, the shooter's father, face to face.

"Hate was destroying me," Scarlett explained. "Every moment I spent in anger was a moment I betrayed Jesse's message. He told me to choose love. So I chose love."

She refused to label the shooter a "monster." Instead, she began asking a different question: What kind of environment produces a young person so consumed by darkness that he would do something like this? And she became convinced that the answer — and the solution — lay in education.

The Birth of the Choose Love Movement

In 2013, Scarlett founded the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating and distributing a comprehensive Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum for students from pre-kindergarten through high school.

The program is built around four core values:

Courage — The strength to do the right thing even when afraid
Gratitude — Developing a positive perspective by appreciating what one has
Forgiveness — Releasing oneself from the prison of anger and resentment
Compassion in Action — Empathizing with others' suffering and acting to help

What makes Choose Love extraordinary is not just its philosophy but its scale and accessibility. The entire program is completely free. Scarlett insisted that no school, no teacher, and no child should ever be excluded because of cost.

A Movement That Reached the World

By 2024, the Choose Love program has been implemented in all 50 U.S. states and in more than 120 countries. Millions of students have gone through the curriculum. Teachers report measurable reductions in bullying, disciplinary incidents, and student anxiety. Peer-reviewed research has validated the program's effectiveness in building emotional resilience and prosocial behavior.

Scarlett travels the country speaking at schools, state legislatures, education conferences, and community centers. Her message never wavers:

"Gun control debates alone won't save our children. Before an angry child picks up a weapon, teach that child how to love. What my six-year-old son did in his last moment — choosing love over fear — is something every human being is capable of. Choosing love is courage."

She has testified before Congress, appeared on national media, and written a book, Nurturing Healing Love, sharing her journey from unimaginable loss to purposeful mission.

The Chalkboard Still Stands

In Scarlett Lewis's kitchen, the chalkboard remains. Jesse's wobbly handwriting — "Nurturing Healing Love" — has never been erased.

A six-year-old boy lived on this earth for just six years. He spoke his last word — "Run!" — to save his friends. He left three words on a chalkboard to save millions more.

And his mother, refusing to let grief become hatred, chose to honor her son's message by spending the rest of her life teaching the world the most radical, the most difficult, and the most necessary lesson of all:

Choose love.

To learn more about the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, visit jesselewischooselove.org

"Nurturing, Healing, Love" — How a Six-Year-Old's Last Chalkboard Message Became a Movement That Reached Millions