On February 18 at around 1pm I created a Facebook event titled “March for our Lives Chicago.” A few hours after that, my life flipped upside down in a way I never could have imagined before.

I was all of a sudden on calls with national activists and organizers, at meetings with students I never would have crossed paths with. I was on the news and fighting with the city for permits. In this last month I have learned more than I ever may again in such a short span of time, but what has resonated with me most is the importance of unity when pressing for change.

My first face to face interaction with the other organisers was in Hyde Park at a weekly gun violence activism meeting. We were there to establish a plan and gain the knowledge of the community leaders. What we heard was frustration–frustration with the attention we had been receiving just days after starting a Facebook page when some of them had dedicated their whole lives to this work.

In that meeting we decided that we were going to make March for our Lives Chicago about Chicago. Not just about school shootings but about the students shot everyday on their way home from school on the streets in our city.

On a call with Kofi Ademola, a Chicago Activist, Ademola requested of the March organisers that the walkouts in Chicago all follow the same 17 minute agenda. Ademola stressed that the students of Chicago do the same thing during the 17 minutes on the North, West, and South sides. Likewise, it was made very clear in our first meeting that the March for our Lives Chicago was not just about the NRA and AR-15s, but about handguns killing teens every week on 68th Street.

The importance of equality and unity are as important in Chicago as they are nationally. Thousands of schools across the country walked out at 10:00am last Wednesday, one month after the Parkland Shooting, and didn’t go back to class for 17 minutes. The purpose: to make a stand as unified students, and the future of this county.

What does doing something other than that say? That Parker cares more than others? Every other school in the country went to their normal classes and then walked out for 17 minutes.

The goal of unity was not achieved by Parker. What we think is going above and beyond is saying to other schools, “We are better, and care more.”

A school walkout has no effect if it does not take the sacrifice of education. We as Parker students didn’t interrupt our history debate or ditch a math test. We had a whole day dedicated to the 17 minutes from 10:00am to 10:17am. Doing something other than what the rest of the country did, I believe, was counter-productive.