Rachel “Mo” Smith lives and works in Washington state, as a school administrator. Mo’s students called her Mama Mo (her married name Mosel), which got shortened to “Mo”. She shares two intersections of gun violence: 1) her experience with students hunkering down in a school parking lot at a Tacoma middle school as bullets flew around them and 2) losing her son to suicide.
Read Rachel's Essay
Left: A gallery of images
Images provided by Rachel Smith-Mosel
Charlene Mokos Hoverter writes about the unsolved murder of her sister, Diane, and its impact on herself and her family. She’s a former teacher of public middle school age students and former principal of a Catholic Grammar School. Presently, she’s a volunteer for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and is a Survivor Membership Lead and Fellow for Everytown for Gun Safety. As such, she speaks out for gun violence prevention. Charlene is also an advocate for sexually assaulted survivors. She’s a wife, a mother of three children, step mother to two, grandmother to seven, and step grandmother to four.
On the early morning of July 19, 1986, Charlene's sister, Diane, stopped off at her church on her way to work, as was her habit. On that day she was apparently accosted as she exited her car and was shot in the head. This is a photo of Diane at age 39.
Right: A photo of Diane at age 39.
Image provided by Charlene Mokos Hoverter
