When Kaitlyn McQuown crossed the finish line of the New York City Marathon last November, she carried the memories of 26 people whose lives were tragically cut short.
McQuown dedicated each of the marathon’s 26 miles to a victim of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. As she began each mile, she recorded herself naming one of the victims as she jogged through the streets of New York.
“Mile 5 is for Josephine Gay,” she said in the TikTok video, which amassed 1.8 million views and reached celebrities and even family members of the victims.
“Mile 5. Josephine is my sister. Thank you,” wrote one commenter.
McQuown, a Master of Public Policy (MPP) student, ultimately raised $10,000 for Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit led by several family members of those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The money McQuown raised will go toward the nonprofit’s violence prevention programs in K-12 schools.
“I didn’t expect the video to go as far as it did. That is mind blowing and hard to wrap my head around now, but I’m not exactly surprised that people resonated with it,” McQuown said. “I think in this country, everyone’s tired of seeing these headlines. Everyone’s exhausted by the amount of loss to gun violence.”
The success of the video is also testament to the power of storytelling, which McQuown believes is an important tool in the realm of public policy. To fundraise ahead of the race, McQuown not only asked friends and family to sponsor each mile, but recorded TikTok videos about each of the 20 children and six adults who died, discussing their hobbies, personalities and other anecdotes showing what made them special.
“Allison is remembered for being a budding artist who loved drawing and painting,” McQuown said of 6-year-old Allison Wyatt. “She dreamed of becoming a teacher.”
McQuown, who works for the USC Gould School of Law’s communication team, noted that public policy discussions can be nuanced, complicated and rife with data and analysis, making it difficult for the general public to understand.
“Coming from my communication background and my experience with storytelling, I just think it’s incredibly vital to meet people where they are, which is why I wanted to focus my efforts with this on social media platforms,” McQuown said. “I think all the data and all the analysis in the world are meaningless if it’s not able to be communicated to the general public. That’s really what I’m passionate about.”
McQuown’s passion for gun violence prevention can be traced to her time as an undergraduate student at UC Santa Barbara, where there was a shooting during her freshman year. She dedicated a previous marathon to the victims of that tragedy. It’s important to recognize, she said, that families may want to honor their lost loved one in a multitude of ways that should each be respected.
Now, she’s organizing a 5K race for her fellow USC Price School graduate students, encouraging them to choose a charity or organization to support. She’s still ironing out the details, but the event could take place at the end of this spring semester.
McQuown has advice to peers who want to participate in the 5K – or make an impact on their own: “your story matters.”
“People who care about you will care about the cause that you represent, and just speaking from the heart, you never know who will see it,” McQuown said.
McQuown would know. One of the commenters on her viral TikTok video was actress Amy Poehler, who played the iconic fictional government worker Leslie Knope in Parks & Recreation. “This is beautiful. Thank you,” the actress wrote.
“Parks and Rec was my favorite show in high school and college, and Leslie Knope herself found the video to resonate with her,” McQuown said. “I think we sometimes might have hesitation, thinking that our story doesn’t matter to people, or it matters less than what other people have to say. And that’s not true. That’s a mistake. You have something to say. You have the training for it. You have the education for it. You have the emotional weight for it. And you never know what can come of it, so don’t be afraid to put your stories out there.”
