How the stories of fentanyl’s victims inspired The Star to rally Kansas City to help
“Everyone has a story to tell.”
I love that line from Irish author Frank McCourt. It represents for many journalists our life’s work.
And that’s where The Star started when we decided to take on the issue of fentanyl and the monster the poisonous drug has become in our community in a series called “Deadly Dose.”
Reporters Laura Bauer and Judy Thomas for months interviewed stakeholders, first and foremost the families whose loved ones have died because of the drug. They didn’t stop there, digging into documents and data to further detail what they were being told, and looking for solutions.
What they ultimately found: Fentanyl kills without prejudice, devastating regardless of gender, age, race or ethnicity.
More than that they learned that the victims of this crisis reveled in meaningful lives and lofty dreams before they died.
Among them:
▪ 16-year-old Ethan Everly of Gladstone, who was working long hours helping at his parents’ businesses. “I thought we were going to build an empire someday,” his dad, Brandon, said.
▪ 29-year-old David Hill of Leavenworth, a former college baseball player who had dreamed of the big leagues. “My brother liked to talk to people if they were down and out, try to bring them up,” his big brother, James Hill, said.
▪ 22-year-old Nina Strata of Kansas City, an aesthetician who had just opened her own business. She “would light up a room with her smile and her giggle,” her mom, Michelle Termini, said.
▪ 2-year-old Cillian Miller, whose life had barely begun when somehow he came across fentanyl in a Kansas City home.
Response to their stories was swift.
As the series unfolded, including one piece focusing on families’ frustrations that area police departments and prosecutors aren’t doing more to get justice for their loved ones, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and the City Council launched a plan to hire two “overdose investigators.”
Some Missouri lawmakers are pushing for statewide change. Jamie Fisher, whose 23-year-old daughter, Sami, died because of fentanyl in June 2021, wants a state law to allow new felony charges against people who knowingly deliver or sell drugs that result in serious injury or death. The hope is that stiffer penalties may save lives.
Several of the families followed up with the reporters, grateful that their stories were finally being heard.
“Thank you so much for the opportunity to share this part of my son’s life,” said Katy Meggs, whose 19-year-old son, Seth Barnes, died in 2021.
“I cried for all the victims and their families,” said Linda Elder, whose 38-year-old son, Brandon, died a year ago. “… I’m getting a lot of responses from family and friends that didn’t understand how deadly this chemical is. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
As we heard story after story of lives cut short, we also took to heart the plea of public health professionals. “We need to get Narcan in every home.”
Narcan, the brand name for the drug naloxone, reverses overdoses of fentanyl and other opioids if given quickly enough.
We wanted to spread awareness and get naloxone into as many Kansas City area homes as possible. Our goal: Rally this community we love to join together and become part of the solution.
Allison Dikanovic, a Star editor, volunteered to lead this effort. She searched for knowledgeable partners, community organizations with naloxone and experience distributing it. She found health professionals eager to help.
After weeks of planning, we partnered with five community health organizations – the Independence Health Department, DCCCA, North Kansas City Hospital, Johnson County Mental Health and First Call KC.
With their help, we promoted and participated in six community events across the metro — at two Walmarts in Independence, at the Diá de Muertos festival in Kansas City, Kansas, at St. Gabriel Archangel Parish in the Northland, at the Overland Park Farmers’ Market, and at Leah’s Laundromat on the Q.
Nearly two dozen of our staff members participated, distributing about 1,000 naloxone doses.
We also created and printed a zine that highlights key fentanyl and naloxone facts. The goal: Provide in a compact size easy-to-understand information about fentanyl and its risks as well as how our community can help.
We printed those in both English and Spanish and shared about 550 printed copies.
We want this vital information to be available to everyone, so we also made a digital version that is easy to print or share by email or text.
Two files are available for download, one where some of the pages are flipped upside down and one where all the pages are right side up, to accommodate different printer settings. Just print and fold the two pages to make a handy booklet, and you can email Allison at adikanovic@kcstar.com with any questions.
These events were the highlight of my November.
One woman told us she was two years clean and thanked us for handing out naloxone.
One dad took two naloxone boxes and two booklets to use as a jumping off point to talk with his two daughters.
A business owner said he had come across people passed out on the sidewalk by his shop and was glad to now have some way to help them.
Two moms told us they were going to send the naloxone to college with their teens.
And a group of high school students buying snacks at a Walmart stopped by and each took a booklet and a naloxone box to have on hand just in case something scary happened to a friend.
Thank you, Kansas City, for joining with us. We met so many amazing people — each of you, not surprisingly, with a story to tell.
Other outreach events
We partnered on three other recent community events.
▪ This past Saturday, several members of our staff joined one of our photographers, Tammy Ljungblad, who took holiday portraits as our gift to the families gathered at the Emmanuel Family and Child Development Center for the Soul of Santa “Do Good” Foundation’s annual community holiday event.
The Saturday festivities included a free breakfast for about 100 people and a toy-and-clothing giveaway that helps families facing financial challenges this holiday season.
We’re grateful for the partnership with Soul of Santa leadership, including Executive Director Dennis Powell Jr., founder Tucker Lott and their families. It’s been a privilege to play just a small part in support of their extraordinary efforts to serve their community.
▪ We love celebrating community members making a positive impact. This is the primary mission behind our ongoing project “Voices of Kansas City,” which is based on feedback from listening sessions and The Star’s Black Community Advisory Board.
Mará Williams, our assistant managing editor focused on race and equity, worked with two partners, KC GIFT and KKFI-FM (90.1) radio, to produce season one. It focused on eight local Black business owners.
Each of them spoke to a Star reporter, and those interviews were published by The Star and aired on KKFI, sharing these stories in the business owners’ own words.
We gathered Nov. 9 at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center to celebrate the featured business owners, and I was deeply inspired by their commitment to lifting up their communities.
We thanked them for trusting us to share their stories. Their gratitude in return reminded me why this work matters so much.
“They let us tell our whole truth and didn’t change the narrative at all,” said Dontavious Young of Equal Minded Cafe. “A lot of times in the past, journalists will look for a protagonist and antagonist, but it was just purely about our own story and no negativity. I loved that.”
We are excited for season two.
▪ Also in November, we hosted a subscriber-exclusive event in The Monogram Lounge at the J. Rieger & Co. distillery focused on our coverage of the Kansas City Chiefs.
During the Chiefs bye week, reporters Blair Kerkhoff and Jesse Newell and columnists Vahe Gregorian and Sam McDowell spent an evening talking about the outlook for the team and answering subscriber questions.
Credit for the lovely evening goes to Hannah Wise, our assistant managing editor focused on experimentation and engagement, whose work organizing and arranging the J. Rieger partnership ensured success.
Our subscribers got just a little taste of how lucky I am to be a part of this Star team.
Among the many nice comments we received from attendees after the event was this one from Ann Horner, who attended with her husband, Tom Weafer, and their son, Jack.
“We value The Star and the hard-working professionals who make it happen,” she emailed. “It was eye-opening to hear about the ‘glamorous’ life of reporters who are writing furiously while the game is still happening(!) to get that story out ASAP. Hope we can see them again soon!”
Partner with us in 2024
The Star plans many more events in the new year both for the Kansas City community at large and for our subscribers. We are particularly interested in partnering with other local organizations to hold events that help make Kansas City a better place to live and work. If you or your organization have suggestions for future partnerships or topics that The Star should explore in 2024, please contact Hannah Wise at hwise@kcstar.com.
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KC Star naloxone harm reduction zine (not flipped) by The Kansas City Star on Scribd
