Don’t Die High Town Hall @ The COV
Thursday night’s “Don’t Die High” Community Town Hall was impactful in a number of ways that you’ll see and hear us talking about for some time to come.
Right now though, on behalf of the Chicago Methamphetamine Task Force, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped to make the Town Hall such a huge success.
First and foremost, we’d like to extend a very special thanks to our partners at the Chicago Department of Public Health (particularly brother Antonio King, who is the LGBTQ Liaison) for rising to the occasion and meeting the moment. We began sounding the alarm about the rise in methamphetamine use among Black gay, bisexual and same gender loving men in Chicago back in 2019. Since that time, we’ve also had to contend with the increasing number of fentanyl overdoses within our community, and CDPH has been our strongest partner in this work.
We’d also like to thank Dr. Maya Green and 4th ward Alderman Lamont Robinson, who have also been early supporters of this work and tireless advocates for our community.
Thank you, Dr. Maya, for the incredibly enlightening presentation on the origins, intentions, and adverse effects of both meth and fentanyl. And to Dr. Christopher Balthazar for fearlessly sharing the official findings of our community-wide survey. Definitely more to come about that!
Thank you, brother Jahari Stamps, for co-moderating such an informative panel discussion with Dr. Maya. And a huge thanks to our fearless panelists including brothers Leslie Givins, Kareem Dent and James Torrey, for lending their voices to such an important discussion and offering their insight into what needs to happen next.
To all of the vendors that came out to share resources and information about their programming designed to help alleviate this crisis, thank you!
Thank you to the New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church family and Pastor Stephen Thurston for opening their house to us and welcoming each and every community member.
And last but certainly not least, we would like to thank each and every one of you who showed up. This work absolutely takes a village and we’re grateful to have you as part of our village!
It goes without saying that when we show up for each other, we make each other and our community better, stronger and filled with hope… and that absolutely warms our hearts every time.
Please stay tuned-in here or on DontDieHigh.com. You can also find information about a number of community resources and the Don’t Die High social marketing campaign, developed in collaboration with our partners at Avoq.
Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other!
