Hi–
Eleven years ago—less than a week after performing at President Obama's second inauguration—our 15-year-old daughter, Hadiya was tragically shot and killed in a senseless act of gun violence.
Her death devastated us, and we miss her every day.
But we are still filled with hope.
Year after year, people come together across the country to honor our daughter and the hundreds of people killed or wounded by gun violence every single day.
We honor Hadiya's life today, on what would have been her 27th birthday, and during National Gun Violence Awareness Day and Wear Orange weekend—which kicks off this Friday.
Join our family by wearing orange June 7-9 at a #WearOrange event near you.
After Hadiya's death, her friends launched Project Orange Tree to honor her life and raise awareness about gun violence in our community. This is how Wear Orange began.
They asked all of us to wear orange because hunters wear the color to warn one another not to shoot—it's the color of safety that signals the need to protect each other.
June 2, 2015—what would have been Hadiya's 18th birthday—was designated the very first National Gun Violence Awareness Day. We now commemorate it every year on the first Friday of June as we kick off Wear Orange weekend.
Whether it's worn by students in Montana, activists in New York, or our family and all of Hadiya's loved ones in Chicago, the color orange honors the more than 120 lives cut short and the hundreds more wounded by gun violence every day.
We have a lot of work left to do before all our children are safe. But if the last eleven years have shown us anything, it's that together, we can save lives. Friend, please join us June 7-9 for #WearOrange.
We must all show up and continue this work because everyone deserves a future free from gun violence.
Thank you for wearing orange and being a part of this movement,
Cleopatra Cowley and Nate Pendleton
Parents of Hadiya Pendleton
Co-founders of Hadiya's Foundation, dba Hadiya's Promise, a 501c3 organization
