Sometimes the most profound acts of healing emerge from the deepest wounds. At Garfield High School in Seattle, seventeen-year-old Princess Green and eight of her fellow students transformed their collective trauma into something extraordinary: a documentary called “True Dawgs.” The film captures not just their pain, but their resilience and unwavering commitment to the community.
The catalyst was devastating. Last year, a student named Amarr Murphy-Paine was killed on the front steps of their school, Garfield High, during school hours. “It was such a traumatic experience, and it hit our school incredibly hard,” Princess said. This wasn’t their community’s first encounter with violence—they had endured multiple lockdowns and experiences with gun violence in the years prior. But Amarr’s death felt different. It happened at the place that was supposed to be their sanctuary.
In the aftermath, Princess found herself questioning everything. “In my heart I knew that I loved my school, but it started to become a place I no longer wanted to be,” she says. She didn’t feel safe. So, she began advocating for students, meeting with the mayor, writing articles, and speaking with the superintendent and chief of police. She was searching for answers, for change, for something that could make sense of the senselessness.
“I used what I had and what I was passionate about—passionate for change in my community—I used that to fuel our documentary and create something to make our school better.” Princess’ work would define not just her junior year, but potentially the future of her school community.
True Dawgs Documentary
Bound together by “common trauma, common feelings, and a common goal,” Princess and eight of her classmates were selected to come up with ways to make their school a better place. With help from mentor Jamie Rees and the abundant support from the AHSHAY organization, these students came together to create something huge. They worked to film, edit, and release the documentary, “True Dawgs”, and to organize a community field day that would “help bring community together and display the collective trauma while highlighting how we’re bouncing back from the issues we’ve had in the past.”
The “True Dawgs” project became more than filmmaking—it was an education in empowerment. Princess discovered abilities she never knew she possessed: interviewing techniques, directing, understanding camera angles and shots. “I never thought about film production as a career. It was cool to be exposed to new skills,” she said.
But perhaps more importantly, she learned that her voice could carry weight in rooms where adults often struggled to find answers.
This confidence didn’t emerge overnight. Princess credits Rainier Scholars, a program she’s been a part of since age 10, with building the foundation. “One of the biggest things I learned from Rainier Scholars was to get out of my shell and speak with confidence.” she said. Early investments from Rainier Scholars, like learning how to do dramatic readings and oratories, now fuel her ability to “get in front of a camera and speak” and to “interview and talk to adults about real world situations that they sometimes don’t have the answers to.”
Gathering Community
On June 6, 2025—exactly one year after Amarr’s death, which also happened to be National Gun Violence Awareness Day—Princess and her team, along with many other Garfield community members organized a powerful community gathering. They encouraged everyone to “wear purple and show off their Bulldog pride and connect in common community.”
The day began with students creating chalk art throughout the school steps, “physically creating a space together.” What followed was remarkable: students walked out of their classes that day to hear testimony from Amarr’s father and other community members, then participated in face painting, food trucks, football games, and a dunk tank for teachers. “So many people came into participation, regardless of if they knew what they were walking into,” Princess said.
This wasn’t just an event—it was a blueprint for healing. “We’d love to make this something that happens every year,” Princess says. “One of the main goals of our project is building community. In order to create a strong community we can be safe in, we must know who makes up that community.”
For Princess, the work is deeply personal. Despite everything they’ve endured, “The community at Garfield is what keeps me here.” She’s captain of the varsity cheer team, recently joined the Black Student Union, and serves as a peer tutor. She’s planning to study child psychology because “I want to talk to kids and work with kids to make their lives better. Kids deserve positive influence.”
Be Revolutionary
At 16, Princess was part of a team that created a documentary. Her message to other young people is both simple and revolutionary: “You are never too young to create change and be the change that you want to see. No voice is too small to make a difference.”
To date, “True Dawgs” has garnered national attention, with coverage from NPR and Pivotal Ventures. The film premiered on August 27, and soon will be available to the public on YouTube. The community gathered to see an early version in late August. The team at AHSHAY is working to refine the documentary to make it suitable for film festivals, and its working to develop accompanying learning toolkits to enable the film to be used as an educational resource for schools, organizations, policy makers, and more. Learn more on the AHSHAY True Dawgs webpage. Princess’ work reminds us that community isn’t just what happens when things are going well—it’s what we build when everything falls apart. As she puts it, “Regardless of the trauma that we face, we are still here and we still have the ability to thrive amidst our circumstances.”
In a world that often feels fractured, Princess and her fellow “True Dawgs” are showing us what’s possible when young people refuse to let trauma have the last word. They’re proving that sometimes the most powerful response to violence isn’t just healing—it’s building something beautiful and lasting from the broken pieces.