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“I have to do something,” said Miriah Jones, junior, when she heard about the loss of her friend Chelsea King, who was kidnapped and murdered in California, February 2010. She decided to do something that would both raise awareness and help prevent it from happening to others in the future.

Jones reflects on her journey to Chelsea’s Walk, “March 2, 2010 7:00 pm a coworker was being updated by his parents about the disappearance of my friend, Chelsea. His face had gone white in the process of the most recent phone call, and without thinking when he hung up I asked, “Who died?” The word that he spoke after that question was a word I was not ready for. “Chelsea,” he replied.

This can’t be happening.

I felt my stomach drop and my eyes begin to burn with the flood that only moments later washed my face. After phone calls to friends back in San Diego, and to my mother only fifteen minutes away there was only one thought that pressed its way to the forefront of my mind.

This could have been avoided.

Chelsea was the running type. Not just physically, but mentally going all the time. However, amongst her busy schedule of San Diego Youth Symphony, straight A student, and peer counseling at our high school she managed to be everyone’s best friend. If you had a shell that kept you from being every ounce of whom you were supposed to be, she stole it from you. She was the type that made you laugh even when it was the one thing farthest from your mind.

Oh, how we needed you on that day.

I remember going back to my dorm that night and saying to my roommate, Jessica Brooks, things weren’t supposed to go that way. She ran those trails every day, knew them like the back of her hand and was smart enough to know that running them in the middle of the night was dangerous. Who knew running in the middle of the day with people surrounding you was dangerous too?

I have to do something.”

Jones and Brooks came up with the idea for Chelsea’s Walk, “I knew that her story could reach our community even from 2.400 miles away. There is no longer room for the ‘that could never happen to me’ mentality. Chelsea’s Walk began spring semester of our freshman year, 2010, and from there we have let God take it to bigger and better places. People are so interested about who Chelsea was, and still is as her memory continues to affect the way those who hear her message live day in and day out.

What now?

The only way to change after hearing her message, or even after reading this, is to understand the memory and fight left behind. She was an activist for the underdog and she spent her life loving everyone. As Christians that is our purpose, right? To love, be loved, and share love to everyone we can. Be safe. If nothing else, know that you are loved.”