May is Stop the Bleed Month. Help Us Bring a Class to Your Community.
We are looking for Philadelphia-area organizations to host a free community Stop the Bleed class during the month of May or the weeks immediately after.
May is national Stop the Bleed Month, and across the country it is the month when hospitals, fire departments, and community organizations work to put life-saving skills into more hands. At Penn Tactical Solutions, we mark it the same way we approach the work the rest of the year: by teaching the skills that matter, in the communities that need them most, at no cost to the people who show up.
This year we are looking for hosts in the Philadelphia area.
A host is a school, congregation, community center, neighborhood association, scout troop, civic group, or other organization in the Philadelphia region that can put a class together. The host provides the space, helps fill the room with the right audience, and confirms a minimum attendance. PTS provides the instructor, the curriculum, and the training materials at no cost. A typical class runs 60 to 90 minutes and covers the four skills that save lives in a bleeding emergency: recognizing life-threatening bleeding, applying direct pressure, packing a wound, and applying a tourniquet.
Hosting a class is a meaningful contribution. It puts the skills in front of an audience that may never sit through a formal class, and it tells the people in your community that their organization takes their safety seriously enough to do something about it.
We also encourage host organizations to invite local media to attend. Stop the Bleed Month is a public health story, and a community class is the kind of event that local outlets are usually glad to cover. Coverage of a single class often does more to drive awareness across the broader community than the class itself, and it puts pressure on neighboring organizations to think about their own preparedness. We are happy to coordinate with reporters, provide background on the program, and make our instructors available for interviews.
Before reaching out, you can read more about how our community outreach program works, who we prioritize, and what we ask of host organizations on our community outreach page. The same page covers our broader outreach work throughout the year, including briefings, equipment donations, and event presence.
For background on the program, the Hartford Consensus, and how Stop the Bleed Month became a national observance, read our field note: The Origins of Stop the Bleed: From Sandy Hook to a National Movement.
If you are interested in hosting, send a message to info@penntacticalsolutions.com with "Stop the Bleed Month" in the subject line. Tell us a little about your organization, where you are located, and the audience you want to reach. We respond to every inquiry and will be direct about what we can and cannot do.
If you want to support this work but are not in a position to host, we welcome that conversation too. Reach out at the same address and we will tell you about ways to help.
May is one month. Bleeding emergencies happen the other eleven too. The skills we teach during Stop the Bleed Month are the same ones that save lives in October, in February, in any month when something goes wrong. The classes we host together this May will pay forward for years.
STOP THE BLEED® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Defense. Penn Tactical Solutions is an NAEMT and ASHI authorized training center based in Philadelphia.