Volunteers To Prep Free Overdose Meds For Giveaway

Overdose prevention activists and volunteers in Kanawha County plan to give out thousands of free doses of naloxone as part of national Save A Life Day on Saturday, September 26. 

The movement began as a two-county pilot program four years ago and since then has grown to all 55 counties in West Virginia along with every state in Appalachia and more than 30 states nationwide – including every state east of the Mississippi River. 

Naloxone is a medication that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose and can quickly restore normal breathing that has slowed or stopped due to opiates.

An estimated 463 lives have been lost to overdoses in Kanawha County since 2022. 

At the end of September, 463 new emergency naloxone wall boxes with life-saving medications that can be easily accessed in an emergency will be distributed across the 15 free naloxone pick up sites in Kanawha County. 

The most recent figures from the National Institute on Drug Abuse show that West Virginia’s fatal overdose death rate had grown to almost 81 per 100,000 people.

Saturday, Sept. 14 volunteers will gather at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charleston from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to pack swag bags and prepare emergency wall boxes for the give away on September 26. 

For more information, visit soarwv.org/.