Marching Forward
Hello, everyone, and welcome to our March blog post! We have a few exciting updates to share with you, but we’ll keep this month brief because we’ve been slammed, and are trying our best to keep momentum (hence your receiving the March update in the final days of April 🙂).
We’ll jump straight to the most riveting news for the sake of the skimmers (we get it; we also skim stuff we care about in theory but don’t have time for): In March we conducted our first narcan (naloxone) pass-out in San Francisco, and it couldn’t have gone more smoothly thanks to the community we’ve been building with our neighbors in need for the past year or so. We’re getting more and more comfortable integrating this life-saving drug into our Shelter and Unhoused Support (SUS) Program, continuing to grow and evolve our plans for the future.
Right now, we pass out meals/smoothies and narcan at the same time, trusting our neighbors to self-identify whether they need the latter in addition to the former. There are also circumstances in which narcan is given out spontaneously to someone we encounter in immediate or near-immediate need (and this may happen anywhere in San Francisco, while the scheduled pass-outs are focused on the Mission and sometimes Tenderloin areas).
Each narcan kit contains two nasal-spray doses of naloxone as well as illustrated instructions for use (it’s quite simple). We’ve also been including a note that reminds users to call 911 right away when a dose is used, as well as providing a number to text if they need more.
The other context in which we offer them is when passing out condoms to sex workers on Shotwell Street. Prophylactics and narcan are both wonderful tools to wield in the Harm Reduction movement, which aims to reduce the rates of disease, overdose and death amongst people who use drugs and those with whom they associate.
[ Learn more about the Harm Reduction movement at https://harmreduction.org/ or check out our instagram post on the topic: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4L7sn5yI70/?img_index=1 ]
The meals we pass out are either whole food combinations of veggies, grains, legumes, fats and sometimes fruits, or consist of our Complete Meal Smoothies, which contain the same plant-based makeup. The smoothies’ vegetable and legume content may rotate, but they’re flavored predominantly with apple, ginger and kale to ensure they’re yummy and easy to digest as well as nutrient-dense. As we’ve mentioned in the past, our meals are always free of the top 12 allergens, oils, additives and animal products to ensure no one is excluded due to medical or religious dietary restrictions.
In the hopefully-not-so-distant future, we’d like to have the program funds to include the following in our neighborhood pass outs in addition to the food, narcan and condoms:
First aid supplies
Reusable water bottles
Camp supplies
Toiletries
Clothing
OTC meds/ herbs
We’d also love to engage in advocacy for the implementation of more (and cleaner) public water fountains, fresh produce stations and other public health installments. As we discussed in our most recent Online EDU posts on instagram, we are very concerned with the negative feedback loop between poverty and poor health, so any little thing we can do to disrupt that cycle is worth our time.
We also acquired a fourth board member in March, and we’re very excited to introduce her! Leila McDowell is a Strategic Communications Strategist whose marvelous career has included everything from serving as Communications VP for the NAACP and Managing Director of Communications at the Advancement Project to interviewing various heads of state to working for Nelson Mandela to cultivating a radio personality as both anchor and producer under the name Jazmyn Summers.
We are absolutely thrilled and humbled to have someone as well versed in the world of public service as Ms. McDowell, and very much look forward to the insight she’ll be able to offer in board meetings and budgetary matters.
As to a fifth member (which we need in order to maintain an odd-numbered voting pool), we’re still in a desperate search to secure one in Birmingham! And because we no longer have a board member there since Angela has moved back to New Orleans, we feel we can’t proceed with the first community event until we have a new one. So if you have connections to anyone who might be a good fit in Birmingham (connected to the community, progressive, in Bham for the long haul), we implore you to send them our way! We’d be happy to provide our Call For Board Members PDF (a simple 2pager) to anyone who reaches out.
Circling back to the Online EDU posts, we’d like to begin covering the highlights of those topics in the blog posts to keep everyone informed of all corners of our work. March’s topic was heart disease, a collection of ailments that touch nearly every American in one way or another, and the nation’s leading cause of death. Rates of heart disease and fatal outcomes in Alabama and Louisiana are some of the highest in the US, and California ranks among the top five states in rates of hypertension specifically.
Heart disease rates in all three locations are also quite indicative of health disparities based on socioeconomic status (SES) and geographic location, which we used to discuss the health-SES feedback loop that is so central to our work. One study even projects the rate of premature coronary artery disease among low-income folks to be DOUBLE that of higher-income people.
health-SES feedback loop graphic from March Online EDU posts
In April, the Online EDU posts will be covering cancer (which ends up being a long term chronic illness for many, just like heart disease). We intend to continue using our social media to further our mission via awareness and advocacy to combat health stigma and to spread the Harm Reduction and Mutual Aid movements. We also use our platforms to highlight the coinciding work we do on the ground, as in our videos featuring meal pass-outs. Even topics we cover in the monthly Online EDU posts are directly relevant to our ground work, as we’re actively working to make care for these ailments (both primary and reactive) more accessible to our neighbors and clients by outlining free and affordable options in the resource pamphlets.
As for the other programs, we likely won’t have more updates until we secure more funds to launch them. We’re hoping our upcoming peer-to-peer campaign (and hopefully some grants!) will help us solve that issue. Participants in the peer-to-peer campaign will have four months to raise a specific sum. While we haven’t settled yet on a start date, we’re shooting for around May 15 to begin the campaign (we had to push it back due to staff illness). Should you like to participate, please don’t hesitate to reach out! More information will be provided on the social media pages in the upcoming weeks.
We’d like to extend our thanks to you all for sticking with us as we navigate the ins and outs of getting a nonprofit organization off the ground. While the process can be arduous and frustrating, the moments of fulfillment we’re getting in the SUS Program are already making it all worth it, and we cannot wait to expand our work and continue seeing the fruits of our labor come to life. And none of it would be possible without the affirmation and support of you lovely folks!
We wish you a happy, healthful spring, and remind you to make time for your own health, work-life balance and pursuit of happiness!
