Brady Center

Why Donate to an Organization that Promotes Non-violence?  

More than 100 mass shootings in 2 months - Between Jan 1 and Mar 6, 2023, there were more than 100 mass shootings!  

I (Nancy Sessoms) believe the most important Yama (guides for right-living) is Ahimsa. The word Ahimsa may not have the same recognition as non-harming or non-violence and it is similar to words most of us heard since our youth “thou shalt not kill”. In addition, Ahimsa also asks that you look at where you can offer more kindness and compassion.

Living your yoga may be uncomfortable at times (I’m talking emotionally here) but we need to confront life’s wrongs. I shy away from the news as each time I see the pain and suffering surrounding us my heart breaks a little more. Knowing that gun violence has become the leading cause of death among Americans under age 18 is unacceptable. 

There are so many worthwhile causes to support that promote non-violence, kindness and compassion. The organization I have chosen to promote is Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. My intention is that the money you would have paid to take classes ends up doing some good in pursuit of gun violence prevention. 

Brady United has created a donation link specific to Gloucester Yoga. 

If you are able, you can make donations weekly, monthly, yearly – whatever works for you. Please use this specific link. The Brady Center will be able to tell us the total amount given. They do not share individual gifts for privacy reasons.   

Fundraising Goal

June 1, 2023 - Dec 31, 2024

$7023 as of April 11, 2024

What Does the Brady Center Do?

Brady Center works with the courts to represent gun violence victims and in communities to educate Americans about gun safety - a crucial part of keeping our homes and neighborhoods safe.  

Brady seeks to end the epidemic of gun violence by targeting the root causes of gun deaths and injuries in America.  As with any epidemic, there are several points of strategic intervention required to eradicate gun violence.  Brady designed their programs to work at the root causes of gun homicide, gun suicide, mass shootings, and unintentional shootings. Focused on taking action, not sides, Brady is blazing the trail for a public health approach to preventing gun violence in America.

Brady’s Combating Crime Guns Initiative (CCGI) targets the small percentage of gun dealers (about 5% of gun dealers) who routinely violate the law and supply 90% of crime guns. 

Brady’s Enhanced Inspections Initiative provides state and local authorities with tools necessary to optimize their own gun dealer inspection processes.  Using thousands of pages of ATF inspection reports, Brady developed a method for identifying key characteristics of dealers more likely to violate the law. This ground-breaking tool is 4.5 times more likely to identify a problem dealer than existing practices that utilize random selection.

Brady’s End Family Fire (EFF) focuses on educating communities about the sources of crime guns, increased awareness about the importance of responsible firearm storage and has had a real impact on firearm storage attitudes and behaviors. 

Safe gun storage and suicide prevention can be stigmatized, politicized, and extremely difficult to broach. In September 2020, Brady and the Ad Council launched a new round of End Family Fire (EFF) ads specifically focused on preventing gun suicide through safe storage. A year later, Brady followed this effort with the ‘Service Never Stops’ campaign, a rollout of public service announcements targeted at the Veteran community–a population disproportionately impacted by gun suicide.

Brady is making demonstrable progress: Ad Council tracking results show that gun owners who have seen EFF ads–an estimated 27 million–are over 4x more likely to seek out information on how to safely store their firearms, and over 2.5x more likely to talk to friends or family about safe gun storage.

Progress / Victories Over Time:

 In 2012: