2026 Award Recipient
SumnerSilver
Project Hope Kits
Project Hope Kits
Sumner is the founder of Hope Kits, an organization that provides communities with portable Stop the Bleed kits and hands-on training to respond to life-threatening bleeding emergencies.
Sumner’s project began in grief. On July 4, 2022, a mass shooting tore through her hometown of Highland Park, Illinois, killing seven people—including Jacki Sundheim, a beloved synagogue coordinator who had guided Sumner through her Bat Mitzvah and handed her a siddur at services since she was five years old. Two days later, at Jacki’s memorial, Sumner sat among congregants in a sanctuary that suddenly felt different. She knew she had to do something.
Sumner started by making handmade greeting cards, or “Happy Notes,” selling them at local art shows to raise money for shooting victims. Sumner then went on to get Stop the Bleed certified, and everything clicked. She learned that a person can bleed to death in as little as two to five minutes, often before first responders arrive, and that having the right supplies on hand can mean the difference between life and death. She used the funds raised from greeting cards to support the first round of Hope Kits.
Each Hope Kit is compact and portable (designed to go in a backpack, car, or classroom) and contains a tourniquet, compression bandage, packing gauze, gloves, a marker, and an instruction sheet. Critically, every kit is paired with hands-on Stop the Bleed training run in partnership with local fire departments, so recipients know exactly how to use them. Sumner has raised more than $30,000 and distributed well over 1,000 kits across the Chicagoland area through partners including the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago and the Lake County Gun Violence Prevention Initiative.
An organization that provides portable Stop the Bleed kits and hands-on emergency training to communities affected by gun violence, putting life-saving tools and skills directly into the hands of everyday people before first responders arrive.
