ROCK FALLS – Rhyanna Hadden is wrapping her loving hands around a small New England town shaken by tragedy.

The 15-year-old freshman at Rock Falls High School was so moved by the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn., in December that she pledged to do something to help. She discussed it with Margo Jakobs, a counselor at the high school.

“It just hit me – tears,” Hadden said. “I told Margo, ‘We have to fix this. We have to do something for them.’ That could have been us in that shooting. Those could have been our lives.”