It’s a pretty grim roll call.
Every five minutes of every hour of every day in America, someone will die of a drug overdose.
A son.
A daughter.
A girlfriend, a boyfriend.
A dad or an old roommate from college who just always seemed to be in control of every situation or circumstance — no matter what.
West Virginia is still at the epicenter of the nation’s opioid and fentanyl epidemic.
The shadow of addiction might even be over your family right now.
After all, this is a place that, between March 2021 and March 2022, saw 1,485 deaths among state residents to drug overdoses, according to some of the more-recent numbers culled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That’s why GameChanger was launched and that’s why Jennifer Garner is coming back home.
GameChanger is the drug abuse prevention and awareness network geared to West Virginia’s youth.
And Garner, the Hollywood actress, entrepreneur and philanthropist who grew up in Charleston, is making keynote remarks at the organization’s annual GameChanger Prevention Education Dinner and Golf Classic next month at The Greenbrier.
This is the fourth year for the fundraiser, which is May 22-23 at the luxury resort in While Sulphur Springs.
Visit https://gamechangerusa.org/ for full details.
Joe Boczek, the Morgantown businessman and former WVU sports information director who founded the effort in 2017, says he knows he’s lucky.
That’s because he almost lost someone he loved to addiction.
Almost.
Not every family is as fortunate, as the CDC numbers tell.
“Opioid and substance misuse and fentanyl are killing our kids, destroying our families and threatening the core of our communities,” he said.
The GameChanger model, Boczek said, isn’t a pamphlet with a laundry list of, “Don’t do drugs.”
It’s a full-on program giving direction to quell the addictive behaviors that bring a person, and a family, to the edge of the abyss, he said.
Most important, he said, it’s about the education and empowerment of kids talking to kids — and about what can happen, and what will likely happen, when you take that first hit at the party.
In those boots-on-the-ground years between 2017 and now, GameChanger has forged a partnership with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation to further hone that message and to keep the conversion going.
Today, you’ll find GameChanger in 55 schools across 18 counties in West Virginia.
That includes Clay-Battelle Middle/High School and Mason Dixon Elementary in Monongalia County — and North Marion High, Mannington Middle and Blackshere Elementary, right next door in Marion County.
Schools in Kentucky and Tennessee are also signing on this year, Boczek said.
Rising stars — down-to-earth mission
Garner, meanwhile, isn’t the only high-profile Mountain State native to lend her presence to the program.
Nick Saban, the storied Alabama football coach who grew up in Marion County is a proponent, as is Brad Paisley, the Nashville country music star who hails from the Wheeling area.
“GameChanger is West Virginians helping West Virginians,” said Boczek, who is quick to thank all the lawmakers, business leaders and media stars who have helped the initiative evolve and enable — in, as he says, the best sense of enabling.
“And we’re going be helping a lot more people everywhere else,” he said.
That’s already happening — right in Garner’s wheelhouse, in fact.
The GameChanger-produced documentary, “One Pill Can Kill,” is already netting acclaim at film festivals here and across the Atlantic.
On these shores, it took first-place honors in the Best Short Documentary category at Long Island’s Voices Rising Film Festival in New York.
The documentary did the same at Impact Docs Awards in La Jolla, Calif., and the Oniros Film Festival, in New York City.
Internationally, it earned an honorable mention for at the Red Movie Awards in Reims, France.
The Reel Recovery Film Festival in Studio City, Calif., and the Lane Doc Festival in Jackson, Tenn., both recognized it as an official selection at their respective festivals.
A re-release is being planned, Boczek said, and will include a teacher lesson plan booklet.
Boczek estimates “One Pill Can Kill” has already been viewed by more than 100,000 teenagers and adults.
You can watch it for free on the GameChanger website.
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