A $10,000 grant from the Lake Forest-based Grainger Foundation has put more than 300 portable trauma-response kits into high-risk communities across Chicagoland, with another 700 being assembled for distribution to organizations throughout the region.

The Grainger Foundation, headquartered at 225 E. Deerpath Road in Lake Forest, was established in 1949 by W.W. Grainger founder William W. Grainger. The private foundation reported total giving of $20.4 million in its most recent IRS 990 filing. The $10,000 Hope Kits grant is one piece of a broad portfolio that includes educational, medical, cultural, and human services organizations.

The foundation awarded the grant to Sumner Silver, a recent Highland Park High School graduate who created Hope Kits after the July 4, 2022, parade shooting in Highland Park. Each kit contains an instruction guide, emergency compression gauze, a CAT tourniquet, gloves, and a Sharpie marker to record the time a tourniquet is applied.

Silver used the grant to partner with the Lake County Gun Violence Prevention Initiative, a program administered by the Lake County State's Attorney's Office that targets violence interruption in areas with the highest risk of gun violence. Through that partnership, she donated more than 300 kits directly to communities the initiative serves, according to a Wednesday, July 15, report in The Record North Shore.

Silver has distributed roughly 700 Hope Kits total since launching the program in 2022. The 700 additional kits now in production will bring her total past 1,400. When The Record North Shore first profiled her in April 2025, she had distributed about 200. She funds the kits partly through sales of handmade greeting cards called Happy Notes, with all proceeds going to kit production.

"Our hope is that we expand Hope Kits beyond the Chicagoland area into more at-risk communities across the country because gun violence is still definitely an epidemic in this country, and it's not going away anytime soon," Silver told The Record North Shore on Wednesday, July 15.

Beyond kit distribution, Silver has been hosting bimonthly Stop the Bleed certification courses, expanding into fire departments across Chicagoland. She led a course on Friday, June 26, alongside two firefighters, training 20 community members in tourniquet application and wound packing. On Saturday, June 27, she participated in the Lake County Gun Violence Prevention Initiative's Summer Day of Service at the Foss Park Community Recreation Center, demonstrating trauma-response techniques.

Silver also received the $36,000 Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award, which recognizes 15 teenagers worldwide each year, according to The Record North Shore. Those funds can go toward her studies and continued kit production. She is finalizing college plans and intends to bring Hope Kits with her wherever she attends.