Comments

I saw your segment today on Montel, and it touched me. My husband and I work for a state Dept of Corrections and deal with some of these offenders on a daily basis. I am always left wondering how their victims are coping. I was so excited to see a project of this magnitude from the next generation. We have four young children of our own and want to get the DVD to have to show to them on a regular basis. More than anything I just want to thank you for having the courage to step up and help other young people protect themselves. Thank you and congratulations on being such fine young women.

Hi Girls,

I saw you on Montel this morning and wanted to tell you how awesome I think you are for doing an awareness video for not only teens but anyone. I am a mother of four children three boys and one girl. I would love to have a dvd to teach them how to protect themselves. I also plan to take the dvd to the local schools and see if I can get them on board with your mission to protect people from predators. Keep up the good!

Thank you for the DVD. I wanted to let you know that I really admire you for coming up with "Just Yell Fire." It is really neat to see a proactive approach to the issues of violence that women face. What an empowering world you are creating! Thank you for making a difference.

I am a 13 year girl who attends middle school, and does ride the bus. My bus stop has one other girl, the same build and age as me. I am very weak, and don't play any sports whatsoever. For the past year, I have heard of many girls who were older and stronger than me get raped and taken away. Needless to say, I was frightened. What could happen to me?

My mom showed me and my little brother this video. After watching it, I emailed it to all my female friends and watched it over and over again to practice the actions used against a sexual offender. Thank you so much for letting everyone see this. Now I know that I have a chance against a 200 pound man or woman who tries to touch me. By the way, I thought the hair combing thing was brilliant, and the scoop kick was as well.

The DVD came today. I watched it with my daughter. Very well done, very informative. It's a relief to know that even a non-athlete can do something to protect herself. Thank you so much!

Do you two know how much you have inspired me? I'm a 13 year old in Salinas California. Nobody has tried to attack, kidnap, or rape me so far, but if it was to happen, I now know how to protect myself. You two have helped my friend though, she was walking home from school and she remembered to "just yell fire". Thank you two so much!!

Thanks for being a true inspiration

I just returned back to Houston after attending the National Charity League convention in Seattle where I attended your seminar. I was so impressed with your story that it became one of the first things I told my 14 year old daughters about, even before I unpacked my suitcase! Your message of empowerment and following your passion was so inspirational that I could not wait to tell them about it. Both of them thought we should get your DVD to use to teach our chapter members your safety techniques and should become a grade level requirement.

Thank you for being such an incredible mother to such an obviously outstanding daughter.

I am a junior at Gettysburg College in PA. I don't know if you have been watching the news lately, but there has been a murder on our college campus last Thursday. One student (a male senior) strangled and murdered his (ex-)girlfriend of one year (a sophomore). It really shook our campus hard, along with myself, even though i did not know either one that was involved. After breaking down a little tonight, i realized, crying was not going to change the past; nor prevent incidents, assaults, nor murders like this from happening again in the future.

What will? Taking action!

I found your contact information after googling 'self defense for women classes' and wanted to get in contact with you right away. I was hoping you could hold self defense classes for female students, or any woman (faculty, staff or students) on our campus to help protect us if we were to ever get ourselves in this type of situation. It is very scary to know that an innocent 19 year old young woman was strangled, stabbed and murdered by someone that loved her for a year. Not even a stranger, or a crazy drug addict rapist on the street! Her boyfriend! Someone she trusted and loved! How scary is that? She was not able to get away, she was not able to defend herself. She died because of that.

But you... you have the power to give us woman that power. You have the ability to give us woman the ability to defend ourselves. To win. To live. And to help with our recovery of her death on our campus. I believe that immediately holding these self defense classes on our campus will prove that Emily Rachel Silverstein did not die in vain.

Please help me, help us. Give us the power, the ability to defend ourselves and live.

This is a comment sent in to our trainers Leila Rae Sommerfeld and Valerie Mainridge of Gresham, OR

Thank you again from our entire team! You and Valerie did such a fabulous job. Several of our volunteers commented at the end that your traiing was the best self-defense class they had ever taken - and several had attended classes in the past. you adapted your presentation to fit perfectly into our time constraints and skill level. You and Valerie brought such great energy and enthusiasm to our class. We especially appreciate you taking time on a Sunday. We feel empowered to continue to advocate for sexually exploited women in and around Portland.

We are so pleased to know you and your work. I hope this is only the beginning of our partnership.

I watched the Montel Williams show and I was impressed that such young girls have stepped up to help others. I have a daughter, and I think that this movie would benefit her, and give my husband and I a little peace, knowing that she has the information needed to ward off a possible attack.