Our mission is to carry Sheridan’s extravagant heart forward by inspiring compassion, building connection, supporting young people with extraordinary hearts, advocating for a safer America, and standing alongside other families facing this unimaginable loss.

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The Sheridan Gorman Foundation exists because Sheridan’s life was too bright, too loving and too meaningful to end at eighteen years old. She had a rare gift for making people feel seen. She gathered people in, loved them fiercely and somehow made the world around her feel warmer simply by being in it. We want to carry that spirit forward in ways that are both tender and brave.

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We want to create more moments of connection for people who feel alone, recognize young people whose kindness and character deserve to be celebrated, and remind the world that compassion is never small. Sometimes it is a bench, a scholarship, a conversation, a hand extended, or simply the decision to notice someone who might otherwise feel invisible.

But Sheridan’s legacy also calls us to stand up. We stand with Angel Families, amplify their voices, and advocate for stronger laws, smarter policies and greater accountability so fewer families ever have to experience the preventable heartbreak that changed ours forever.

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We believe Sheridan’s legacy should do more than remember who she was. It should reflect how she lived. It should bring people together. It should make someone feel chosen, loved and less alone. It should protect the next family. And above all, it should turn love into action.

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💚Where Compassion Sits

 

Compassion, to us, is not abstract. It looks like Sheridan.

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It looks like noticing the person sitting alone. Pulling someone into the circle. Making a friend feel chosen. Sitting beside someone who is overwhelmed, lonely, anxious or simply having a hard day and letting them know, without needing a big speech, that they do not have to be alone.

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That is the spirit behind Sheridan’s Bench. Our buddy benches are meant to create simple opportunities for connection — especially for children who may not know how to say, “I need someone.” Maybe a friendship starts there. Maybe a difficult day softens. Maybe someone who feels invisible realizes they were noticed after all.

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We also hope Sheridan’s Bench can become a place of quiet refuge — on a school campus, outside a community or mental-health center, or anywhere someone may simply need a safe place to sit, breathe and regroup.

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And someday, we hope one sits in Congress too.

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Though that bench has a slightly bigger assignment lol!

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We want people who disagree to sit down, look each other in the eye, actually listen, and remember that there are real families behind every law, policy and political argument.

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A little ambitious? Maybe.

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But Sheridan spent her life bringing people together, so we figure she might as well keep at it.

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Through scholarships and recognition, we also honor young people with extraordinary hearts — the encouragers, the includers, the kids who lift others up, and the ones who make a room better simply because they are in it because kindness counts and so does character. And making another person feel seen may be one of the most important things any of us ever do.

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🔥Where Courage Stands

 

Courage is the part of Sheridan’s legacy we never expected to inherit.

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After losing her, we learned that love can be soft and tender — but it can also be to stand up, speak out and refuse to look away.

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For us, courage means using our voices when silence would be easier. It is finding our fire standing with Angel Families whose lives have also been shattered by illegal immigrant crime. It means asking hard questions, demanding accountability from the people elected to protect us, and advocating for laws and policies that put public safety first.

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We believe America can be compassionate and still enforce its laws. We believe legal immigration adds immeasurably to the beauty, strength and promise of this country. Illegal immigration is different. It can strain communities, undermine trust in the laws meant to protect us and, in the most devastating cases, steal innocent American lives. Families should never have to pay an unbearable price because reckless policies, weak enforcement or political decisions placed public safety second.

 

Our goal is not to grow the community of Angel Families. It is to make it smaller.

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We cannot change what happened to Sheridan. We cannot rewrite March 19th, bring her home, or give her back the years that should have been hers. But we can decide what we do with the heartbreak that remains.

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We can stand up for the next family. We can speak for those whose losses are too often reduced to statistics. We can insist that preventable tragedies are not simply accepted as the cost of doing nothing. We can keep showing up, keep asking difficult questions and keep pushing for change so fewer parents ever have to live with the questions that now follow us every day.

 

For us, courage does not mean the grief is gone. It means carrying the grief with us and standing anyway. It means loving Sheridan loudly enough that her loss becomes a reason to protect someone else. And it means refusing to be silent when silence might allow another family to join ours.

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Courage does not mean we are no longer heartbroken. It means we love Sheridan enough to do something with our heartbreak.

 

And that is where courage stands up and demands better for our beautiful daughter and yours...

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