Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree Sumner Silver. Read her story, and nominate an outstanding volunteer or family as a Daily Point of Light.
Sumner Silver, an 18-year-old college freshman, is studying physics and astrophysics on a pre-med path while serving in Air Force ROTC with a goal of one day working at a space organization. She is friendly, driven, and well-spoken with a long list of accomplishments in and out of the classroom.
One would never guess she has spent the past few years dealing with the aftermath of a tragedy. But in the wake of a mass shooting and a personal loss, Sumner turned her grief into drive, preparing people to save future lives by responding to traumatic bleeding before first responders can make it to a scene. Someone with a gunshot wound or other bleeding emergency can die in minutes, making response time vital.
With Hope Kits, Sumner has organized more than 40 hands-on certification courses that have certified hundreds of people to care for such injuries. Her organization has also strategically distributed 1,000+ Stop the Bleed kits equipped with the supplies necessary to care for wounded people and raised more than $20,000 to support their work.
What inspires you to volunteer?
My synagogue has tons of volunteer initiatives, and my parents were really involved with one called Mitzvah Garden. We would plant produce and donate each week’s harvest to our local food pantry. It was instilled in me from a very young age the importance of getting involved in my community and helping those in need.
Tell us about your volunteer role with Hope Kits.
I organize all of Hope Kits’ Stop the Bleed certification courses. That means working with fire departments across the Chicagoland area on scheduling and creating outreach materials to bring community members in. We have participants ranging from freshmen in high school to senior citizens.
I also coordinate the assembly and distribution of kits. That involves working with local nonviolence organizations to identify communities that would most benefit from them, as well as working with experts like emergency physicians and firefighters to determine what supplies would be most effective.
Inside each is a CAT-certified (Combat Application Tourniquet) tourniquet with an instruction manual to make it easy for people who haven’t used one before. There’s gauze and bandages to pack a wound, gloves, and a marker to record the time of application on the tourniquet. In one round, we also included bandages specifically for the abdomen. Kits go to schools, places of worship, and businesses. We try to target the most at-risk communities–those with high rates of gun violence.
When I first started Hope Kits, I fundraised by creating Happy Notes greeting cards and selling them at local art fairs and stores. While I still sell Happy Notes, our main source of funds are grants we’ve been awarded from other nonviolence organizations and organizations that support Chicago initiatives.
What inspired you to get started with this initiative?
On July 4, 2022, a mass shooting occurred in my hometown of Highland Park, just north of Chicago. Afterwards, my local fire department began offering Stop the Bleed certification courses, and the firefighters emphasized how critical those first few minutes can be before first responders arrive. Learning about those simple skills really stuck with me. I wanted to give people the knowledge and resources to save a life in an emergency, which became the foundation of Hope Kits.
What’s involved with the certification?
It’s a two-hour course in which you learn how to apply a tourniquet and pack a wound with gauze and bandages on a limb versus in the abdomen. And there are tips and strategies about how to work in that scenario most effectively.
What’s been the most rewarding part of your work?
The most rewarding part has been hosting the Stop the Bleed certification courses in my hometown. Close to 2022, it was very clear how deeply the shooting affected my community. But it was equally clear how eager people were to learn how they could help in an emergency.
After the courses, community members often share their own experiences from that day with me and explain why they wanted to learn these skills. Those conversations remind me about a part of this work that started off as something more than the distribution of kits or hosting courses. In the aftermath of July 4, it was also about giving my community a way to turn something painful and tragic into something constructive.
What have you learned through your experiences as a volunteer?
People often underestimate how much they can do as an individual. Hope Kits is a testament to how, with the right skills and resources, one person can save a life.
Tell us about future partnerships, programs or events that you are excited about.
I’m at school in Florida at the moment, and we’re hosting a Stop the Bleed certification course for community members in the South Florida area in October. We’re trying to expand our presence here.
Any advice for people who want to start volunteering or, more specifically, help with this cause in their own area?
Look at your local fire department’s website. Our fire department just started offering the courses by themselves. You can also take part of the class online and do a skills-only portion in person to complete the certification.
Think about what you enjoy doing, and then figure out how you could use that skill to help. I loved creating art, so I raised money by selling handmade greeting cards at local art shows with Happy Notes, and then donated the proceeds to Hope Kits for supplies. Volunteering doesn’t have to look a certain way; it can be something that’s completely tailored to your interests, skills, and causes of interest.
What do you want people to learn from your story?
You don’t have to have a huge organization or a lot of resources to start making an impact. If you care about a cause, that drive can take you far. If a community cares about a cause, that really makes a difference.
Do you want to make a difference in your community like Sumner? Find local volunteer opportunities.