After the Sirens: Healing, Dignity, and Support for Survivors
Grant-Funded Initiative Will Educate Public on Survivors’ Rights, Trauma Responses, and Pathways to Healing Survivors Empowered is proud to announce that it has been selected as a recipient of a $5,000 Community Awareness Project grant from the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) in support of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week (NCVRW) 2026. The grant […]
Named one of CNN’s Champions for Change a year ago, Sandy and Lonnie Phillips continue championing change in 2024…and beyond
‘We found our joy again and we want other survivors to find their joy again, too.’ -Sandy Phillips during Anderson Cooper/CNN interview Last September, CNN’s Anderson Cooper profiled his chosen Champion for Change, Sandy and Lonnie Phillips of Survivors Empowered. In the interview, Sandy said that their legacy, in honor of their daughter, Jessi—slain in […]
Remembering Jessi Redfield Ghawi
Jessi’s spirit and sacrifice shine more intensely than ever as we mark twelve years since she and eleven others were senselessly slaughtered in the 2012 Aurora, CO theater shootings. Tragically for Survivors Empowered founders Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, the shooting death of their daughter Jessi Redfield Ghawi on July 20, 2012, became the catalyst for […]
Champions For Change
While we’re very honored to be named a “Champion for Change,” by CNN, we feel the real champions are the survivors who cope with the enormity of their loss. For many, coping starts with taking one breath, and then another, and another as their clocks tick through what seems like an eternity. Our job is […]
Survivors Empowered Applauds Jessi’s Law
Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, Leader in the Gun Violence Survivors Movement, Applaud Colorado’s New Law Repealing Gun Industry Immunity DENVER, Colo, April 28, 2023 —Today, Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, parents of Jessica Redfield Ghawi, one of twelve people fatally shot in the Aurora Theater massacre of 2012, were with Colorado Governor Polis to witness the […]