{"id":269331,"date":"2025-10-01T14:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T14:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/269331\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T14:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T14:04:10","slug":"san-antonio-nonprofit-honors-vanessa-guillen-for-her-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/269331\/","title":{"rendered":"San Antonio nonprofit honors Vanessa Guillen for her birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kNAFkD cuqaEv article-text\"><strong>SAN ANTONIO<\/strong> \u2013 A San Antonio nonprofit remembered U.S. Army Specialist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ksat.com\/topic\/Vanessa_Guillen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Vanessa Guillen<\/a> on Tuesday to honor her birthday and continue to spread awareness of military sexual trauma.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kNAFkD cuqaEv article-text\">Sons and Daughters Liberty (SDL) hosted an event to honor Guillen\u2019s life and her family, who brought the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ksat.com\/news\/texas\/2021\/06\/17\/a-year-after-vanessa-guillens-death-lawmakers-and-advocates-call-for-congress-to-pass-military-sexual-assault-reform-bill\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">I am Vanessa Guillen Act<\/a>\u201d to national attention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Michelle Ruiz Deal spoke on behalf of OnHealing Therapy and its dedicated work to individuals and families affected by military sexual trauma (MST).<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cThe reason we were all together was an unfortunate reason, but we are going to remember (Guillen) because her life mattered,\u201d Ruiz Deal said. \u201cMilitary sexual trauma survivors matter, and this is our way of saying that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Guillen was killed on April 22, 2020. Her disappearance became the focus of a nationwide search before her remains were found in a concrete-like substance buried along the Leon River.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cWe need to speak more about military sexual trauma,\u201d said Ashley Estrada, the president of SDL. \u201cIt\u2019s affected a lot of people. Some people have died from it, but there are also a lot of survivors who have not dealt with their trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The group released 26 balloons on Tuesday night, one for each year of Guillen\u2019s life. She would have been 26 years old.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cIt\u2019s not only a way to honor her, but it\u2019s a way to get survivors together,\u201d Estrada said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kNAFkD cuqaEv article-text\">Texas Rep. Josey Garcia was also in attendance at the event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\"><b>Read KSAT\u2019s previous coverage: <\/b><\/p>\n<ul class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 kDvXdO font_openSans articleList\">\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\"\/>\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\"\/><\/ul>\n<p>Copyright 2025 by KSAT &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A San Antonio nonprofit remembered U.S. Army Specialist Vanessa Guillen on Tuesday to honor her&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":269332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,7202,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,58729,2969,140148],"class_list":{"0":"post-269331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-san-antonio","10":"tag-sanantonio","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-us-army","19":"tag-usa","20":"tag-vanessa-guillen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115299291186723335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}