Highland Park teen’s ideas are combatting gun violence

In the aftermath of the 2022 shooting in Highland Park, 16-year old Sumner Silver sprang into action, showing just what it means to be HP Strong.

Silver, now a junior at Highland Park High School, created and continues to sell her handmade greeting cards, called Happy Notes, to fundraise for her Hope Kits, which are portable trauma-response kits designed to provide immediate first aid in emergencies, including but not limited to gunshot wounds. 

“My community experienced a tragic mass shooting, and although I wasn’t there, I live just down the street,” Silver explained of the tragedy behind her journey with Happy Notes and Hope Kits. Silver’s best friend was in attendance at the parade and called Silver as she was leaving the chaotic, harrowing scene.

Silver continued, “In the aftermath of the shooting, I witnessed firsthand the profound impact that gun violence has in a community, and I thought, ‘What can be done that will have the most immediate and most impactful effect right in the moment?’”

First, Silver raised more than $3,000 for the Highland Park Community Foundation to support the victims and their families. But she soon began to ask herself another question: “What can I do to ensure there’s a possibility that gun violence won’t have as devastating of an effect as it did?”

So, Silver got Stop the Bleed certified through a free, two-hour training program in Evanston. The certification, administered by the American College of Surgeons, is designed to teach people emergency response practices to stop life-threatening bleeding caused by both manmade and natural disasters. 

As Silver learned to use tourniquets and pack and apply wounds, she realized that the tools in Stop the Bleed kits and training sessions could save lives. 

Thus, Silver’s Hope Kits were born. 

“Throughout the Stop the Bleed sessions, I realized that people can be educated and what-not, but they (need to) have the actual materials to utilize in case of an emergency,” Silver told The Record. “If people don’t have the tools, they’re not going to be able to do much in a (critical) situation. Following the shooting, I got a lot of feedback from bystanders saying that ‘we really had nothing to work with, but we wish we could’ve done something.’” 

Each Hope Kit comes equipped with an instruction guide, two types of emergency compression gauze, a CAT-certified tourniquet, gloves and a Sharpie marker to record the time on the tourniquet. 

To date, Silver has assembled and distributed nearly 200 Hope Kits to communities in need across Chicagoland. Among these, a large quantity were distributed in partnership with The Institute for Nonviolence Chicago to equip communities in areas at high-risk of gun violence with these life-saving resources. 

In all, Silver has fundraised more than $10,000 toward her initiative by pursuing another one of her passions: art. She uses her handmade greeting cards to spread cheer and raise money. People can choose from cute and colorful greeting cards like, “Have a pawsome day!” with a hand-drawn dog, and “If people were flowers… I’d pick you” with a pink flower. 

“(It’s in) the name, Happy Notes; they’re uplifting,” Silver said. “I thought they’d help bring a little bit of joy back to a period of time that was filled with a lot of things like grief.”

All proceeds from Happy Notes, which Silver sells online and has sold at sidewalk sales and 15 different art shows, go toward gun violence-related initiatives.

As for the future of Hope Kits, Silver is not slowing down. She plans to keep going and see the kits implemented in as many places as possible. She said she’d like to see them in many schools and classrooms and offer training sessions for teachers on how to use the kits. 

“The fact that an incident like this was impacting people, (and) people that I know, was very hard to witness,” she said. “Highland Park is a very tight-knit community. I thought, ‘How can I prevent this from happening in someone else’s community?’

“Even saving one life — that would’ve been something that I would’ve been fulfilled by. Even the possibility of being able to save one life is something that keeps me going.”

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