Fulton resident Christa Daro is sick of watching the opioid addiction epidemic ravage families - her own and others.
That's why she has organized a rally for International Overdose Awareness Day at 1 p.m. Friday at Memorial Park.
It's one of many rallies slated to take place Friday as part of an event coordinated by FED UP!, a coalition of organizations representing hundreds of thousands of families and individuals affected by the epidemic of opioid addiction and overdose deaths.
Speakers at the rally will include Callaway County Sheriff Clay Chism, who will talk about how opioid addiction has impacted the county.
"On the local law enforcement level, we have definitely seen an increase in opioid use," he said.
He added while opioid-related incidents requiring law enforcement intervention have leveled out over recent months, it's still more of an issue than it once was.
From 2013-17, 16 Callaway County residents died due to opioid overdoses (7.1 percent of all deaths in the county), according to data from the Missouri Department of Health. Callaway County's rate is higher than neighboring Cole County (4.95 percent) or Boone County (5.8 percent).
Daro knows the statistics, which shocked her when she first learned about them.
"I knew there was a problem, but I didn't realize even the extent of the problem in (Callaway County) until I started doing some research," she said.
She also has deeply personal experience with the pain the opioid epidemic can bring.
"I lost my ex-husband, my kids' dad, at the beginning of the year," Daro said. "We were married for almost 16 years. He was a functioning addict most of our marriage."
Daro sought resources to help her husband, but they proved difficult to find and access. In 2015, he took a turn for the worse.
"It was starting to get bad, where he was stealing," she said. "It just got out of control. He overdosed from heroin laced with fentanyl in January 2018. It's been pretty traumatic for me and the kids, and we don't want this to happen to any other family."
Other speakers scheduled to appear at the rally also have personal experience, having lost friends and loved ones, or even survived addiction themselves.
"There's a lot of stigma around addiction," she said. "People just think of homeless people and criminals. But it can happen to any family."
She'll be handing out a list of potential resources for those facing addiction and those around them at the rally. Representatives from two area resources will also be present. Brenna Gough of New Vision, a withdrawal management service in Jefferson City, and Trace Neet of The Crossroads Program, a Columbia-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation center for teens and young adults, will be on hand.
"I want to educate my community about the problem," Daro said.
More broadly, the goal for FED UP! is to call on congress to expand access to opioid addiction treatment and to confront opioid manufacturers and distributors for the role some suggest they played in creating the crisis. FED UP! activists said drug manufacturers' aggressive promotion of opioid medication for chronic pain management played into creating addictions.
Advocates will also be protesting the Food and Drug Administration's continued approval of new opioid medications and its failure to remove ultra-high dose opioids from the market, a FED UP! press release stated.