Comments

I just finished watching "Just Yell Fire". It was a very powerful statement for the rights of young women to be safe! Thank you.

Mary

White County Ninth Grade Academy

So pleased to know you and your work

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 saw you guys on GMA this morning and you are doing a really wonderful thing. I was watching with the intent to have my younger sister who is 17 and going to start college in September...learn some "tricks" for when she is on campus. Yet, I learned "tricks" and advice for myself, a 27 year old single girl living in NYC.

I am the Director of Marketing at Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette. This film is amazing. Many thanks.

I am watching just yell fire right now and I am going to tell my counselor at school about it and chances are he will show this to are entire school and thanks for doing this!

Last night when eating dinner with my 2 daughters they brought up the subject of school fights. They also realized they had no idea how to defend themselves. And asked why I never taught them. I’ve done everything with them from swimming, skiing, soccer, tennis, cheer, career exploring, homework, and every other parent obligation I could manage. It suddenly shocked me that I haven’t covered one of the most important at their ages, 13 & 16, self defense. Both are strong, athletic and confident, until the subject of self defense comes up. I immediately started searching for ways to help and found Just Yell Fire I feel shame in not doing this sooner. Please accept my donation and send a DVD.

I have truly been inspired by this organization and hope to start a chapter of the program in my high school when school resumes.

Thanks alot. You should be really proud of your daughter (I'm sure you are). She and her friend have probably saved lives of girls everywhere. I am going to show all my friends the dvd (I'm a mini distributor, LOL). It's very important to know how to defend yourself! I hope you can pass on my thanks to them and say I really admire what they are doing!

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.

I just wanted to update you and let you know that we are teaching Just Yell Fire in our HS PE classes, and the girls are loving it! Thanks again for helping us to get started.