Community Events

Oct

2022

WLEN Interview with ProMedica CVH Hospital Lead Pharmacy Technician Jessica Dixon

Woman’s Voice: This special program is brought to you by the Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition. Guests provide information about upcoming events, resources available, and the many ways to help reduce substance use and promote a healthy Lenawee.

Kathy Williams: This is Kathy Williams and with me on tonight’s program is Jessica Dixon, and Jessica is with ProMedica Hospital. She is the lead pharmacy technician, and Jessica and I are going to talk about the upcoming Drug Take-Back event, which is happening on Saturday, October 29th.

Jessica Dixon: That’s right.

Kathy Williams: Yeah. Jessica, you’ve been involved in these Drug Take-Backs for quite a few years now.

Jessica Dixon: For a lot of years. Yeah, about 15 years I believe.

Kathy Williams: Now we were always surprised at the different kinds of medications that come into the Drug Take-Back event. Can you help our listeners understand better? What is acceptable?

Jessica Dixon: We take just about every medication that you have. Medications that are aerosol in aerosol containers, oral tablets, we take liquids, injectables, pet medications… we can take all of those.

Kathy Williams: Yeah, and even salves.

Jessica Dixon: Yes. The lotions, the creams, all of those. We will take those. We also are offering the sharps collection as well.

Kathy Williams: Yes.

Jessica Dixon: And so any needles you have, we can dispose of those.

Kathy Williams: The biggest thing though that we want to help our listeners understand too, is they can bring things in the original containers. They just, it’s nice if they wipe out their personal information, but you know, if they forget to do that, we’re going to do that at the take back event.

Jessica Dixon: Absolutely. Yep. Original containers are fine. We’re going to black off anything that doesn’t need to be seen, any of your personal information, but absolutely.

Kathy Williams: And then I love the fact that you have volunteers then that are helping you with sorting. Can you tell us a little about that?

Jessica Dixon: We have volunteers from the University of Toledo. They are pharmacy students. So they come in, we get about six of them every time we have this. And they will sort the products into the categories they go into and they get, you know, they get credit for credit hours, but they really enjoy coming and visiting with the community and being there for us.

Kathy Williams: Well, and the other thing that’s great too is that they, of course, they are, getting some knowledge on different products while they’re there, but then we also have great security guards that are watching to make sure nothing crazy is happening here.

Jessica Dixon: Absolutely. Our security there is present. We have Sheriff’s Deputy there as well, so it’s a very, very safe environment for this to take place.

Kathy Williams: So at the Drug Take-Back event itself again is Saturday the 29th, and it’s from 10 o’clock till two o’clock. This is a hard stop. Two o’clock.

Jessica Dixon: Two o’clock, we are done. We are collecting our signs and packing up for the day.

Kathy Williams: Yeah, it’s kind of a regulation type thing.

Jessica Dixon: It is.

Kathy Williams: Because this is being done nationwide, correct?

Jessica Dixon: Correct, yes.

Kathy Williams: All over the place through the, is it…

Jessica Dixon: DEA.

Kathy Williams: The DEA. Is it Drug Enforcement…?

Jessica Dixon: Yep. Drug Enforcement Agency.

Kathy Williams: I’m like, I know it’s not environmental, so gotta get your acronyms correct.

Jessica Dixon: Yes.

Kathy Williams: Jessica, we also will take, you know, vitamins and things like that that are expired.

Jessica Dixon: Absolutely. Over the counter meds. Not only the prescription medications, but all over the counter medications, vitamins, supplements.

Kathy Williams: Yeah, we talked before, I don’t know how many times, you know, you’ve bought some kind of extra diet thing that’s going to miracle make you lose 20 pounds in 19 days and then you found out it didn’t work and you have half a bottle left and you’re like, what do I do with it?

Jessica Dixon: Yeah. We will gladly take it off your hands.

Kathy Williams: Exactly. And that all counts toward, you know, the end results of not putting it in the trash. Not flushing it down the toilet.

Jessica Dixon: Right.

Kathy Williams: And then, because you know, this is part of the Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition, we want to get drugs out of the way so that they’re not misused.

Jessica Dixon: Absolutely. And we provide that safe, convenient way to do it. We contract with a company that comes in and removes the medications and they incinerate it to make the meds un-retrievable.

Kathy Williams: Yes. And at the same time, you’ll also help dispose of the original packaging too, so that none of that’s, you know, laying around or accidentally available to anyone.

Jessica Dixon: Right. Yep. All private information is blacked out and disposed of all that trash.

Kathy Williams: Exactly. So, we want to of course, encourage people, you know, start looking now. This program’s of course, on October 24th, on a Monday, but you have all week to go looking for your products.

Jessica Dixon: Yes.

Kathy Williams: It’s amazing how many different places people stick stuff and then forget it’s there. And so this is a perfect time to go through those drawers and find “Oh yeah. I probably shouldn’t have those eardrops anymore.”

Jessica Dixon: Oh, right. Your medicine cabinet. Your little drawer at your desk. You know.

Kathy Williams: Yeah.

Jessica Dixon: It’s always little, little places that we leave things.

Kathy Williams: So everything is going to be, oh, there’s going to be new signage this year, I understand, in front of the ProMedica Hickman hospital that’s going to actually say “Drug Take-Back event”. And it’s going to have arrows pointing you to where everything is happening. It’s along the side of the emergency room, but back behind the hospital.

Jessica Dixon: Yep. Behind the, if you drive in closer to the emergency room, you will get it and follow your, follow the signs. They should be pointing you to the way.

Kathy Williams: Yeah.

Jessica Dixon: And we’ll be right behind the hospital.

Kathy Williams: Exactly. Well, we’re excited to have it happen and encourage people you know, if you have neighbors that can’t come, you know, you know, get with your family and friends and just do a big collection and you don’t even have to get out of your car. It’s a drive through event.

Jessica Dixon: It is a drive through. We’ll go right to your window and pick up your items.

Kathy Williams: There you go. Thanks so much, Jessica. We appreciate your being a part of the Drug Take-Back Day and, and everything you do.

Jessica Dixon: Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Kathy Williams: You’re welcome.

Woman’s Voice: The Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition supported by funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration. Thank you for listening. New messages air on the second and fourth Monday each month at 6:15 PM. You can listen to this program as a podcast under the “on air audio” tab on WLEN.com and get more information at DrugPreventionLenawee.com.

Oct

2022

WLEN Interview with Cradle to Career Director Tim Kelly

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Kathy Williams: This is Kathy Williams and with me on tonight’s program is Tim Kelly. Tim wears many hats. He is the director of Cradle to Career Partnership. He is also the Social and Emotional Learning Coordinator at LSID, and for tonight we’re going be talking about hat number three. He is the chair of the LSAPC subcommittee, which is Prevention and Education. Tim, thanks for taking time out of your day.

Tim Kelly: It’s great to be here.

Kathy Williams: So, we’re going to talk about the Prevention and Education subcommittee for the LSAPC. So one of the goals is to help educate our community, basically.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. That is the goal, really, isn’t it?

Kathy Williams: Yeah.

Tim Kelly: From school age all the way up to the elderly, we all can learn more about preventing substance abuse and things we can do to dispose of our medications.

Kathy Williams: Yes.

Tim Kelly: That’s really what some of our focus is about.

Kathy Williams: By educating all the different age demographics and people of different walks of life, we’re helping them learn more about different kinds of substance abuse, but also about the different partnerships that we have within the community for necessary help.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. We have, you know, a very diverse group that’s addressing substance abuse. We have people who are in recovery bring a great deal of information and help in addressing it. We have obviously CMH, Parkside, the hospital, ProMedica, also provides support there, as does the ISD and just a number of community partners that, frankly, whenever you just say, “we need a hand with this,” and they step right up and want to address the issue with us.

Kathy Williams: Someone is always there to help no matter, you know, what kind of situation you’re in. So, we want to talk tonight too about the upcoming Drug Take-Back event that’s happening at the end of the month, and we can’t get the word out too early really about that…

Tim Kelly: No.

Kathy Williams: Because we want people to take time to go through their cupboards and drawers and everything and put together their donations.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. We’re, yeah. We need people to get rid of their medications that they’re no longer using, that are expired. You know, it’s a great opportunity on October 29th, between 10:00 and 2:00 PM to come out to ProMedica hospital right around the backside there and drop stuff off. There’ll be signs directing you and picking up something in the way of a little goody bag that will say “thank you” just a little bit for making our community just a little bit safer.

Kathy Williams: Exactly. Used to be back in the day that you’d flush things down the toilet or just throw them in the regular trash. And, you know, they really are trying to be a little bit more environmentally concerned by disposing of things properly. And so twice a year this event happens.

Tim Kelly: Yep, yep. I’ve been involved the last two years, so this is going on my third year, so to speak. And, it’s been a very good turnout. We’ve typically had over 300 people involved and it really is an opportunity to get rid of things, including sharps, I should have mentioned that. Sharps are something that people seem to have a hard time getting rid of, and obviously we don’t want those things in the trash. We don’t want things flushed down toilets because they can… Maybe you’re aware they can check the chemicals in our wastewater treatment and they know what’s out there in our, into our water systems.

Kathy Williams: Right.

Tim Kelly: So, we really need to keep that stuff out of the old ways we used to get rid of it.

Kathy Williams: Exactly. And this is a national event. It’s put on by the Drug Enforcement Administration. And so everything that’s done on Saturday, October 29th atthe Drug Take-Back event, there are precautions being made. The Sheriff’s Department is there present and it’s pretty tight as far as how everything happens that day.

Tim Kelly: Yeah, yeah. There’s a lot of rules and regulations as it requires law enforcement to handle the substances that are disposed of and they, you know, along with some pharmacists from the hospital that help sort them, so that we can kind of tell what’s been disposed of. But yeah, they have a very strict requirements about where things can be disposed of. They have to end at two o’clock. It’s very, very strict.

Kathy Williams: It’s hard and fast. Yes, it is.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. So they, you know, not only on that day, I should mention that they have their red boxes at a number of law enforcement agencies around the county that if you can’t make it on the 29th, you can take them there. And we really need people to take them whenever they can to law enforcement.

Kathy Williams: So Tim, again, we want to remind people that it is Saturday, October 29th. It is at the ProMedica Hickman Hospital. You just follow the signs that say COVID testing, basically to take them around the back and they can get more information about the event and you know, garner some information in general at DrugPreventionLenawee.com. So thanks so much, Tim.

Tim Kelly: Right, thanks Kathy.

Aug

2022

WLEN Interview with LCMHA / Pathways Engagement Center Program Manager Kellie Niese

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Woman’s Voice: The Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition is a diverse group of dedicated community members united around the goal of reducing substance use in Lenawee County. LSAPC members work collaboratively to engage and educate the community in order to promote a healthy Lenawee.

Kathy Williams: This is Kathy Williams. And with me on tonight’s program is Kellie Niese, and Kellie is the program manager at Pathways here in Adrian and she is also the HRSA grant recovery coordinator. We’re going to be talking about an event that’s coming up. It’s called Day of HOPE. Kellie, thanks for joining me tonight.

Kellie Niese: Hi, thank you for having me.

Kathy Williams: So Day of HOPE, this is the second year that you’re having this event,

Kellie Niese: Right.

Kathy Williams: And it’s August 31^st.

Kellie Niese: August 31st, two to six at the Farmer’s Market in downtown, Adrian.

Kathy Williams: So tell us, what does Day of HOPE stand for?

Kellie Niese: So, Day of HOPE is health ownership, education and prevention. Really though, I love the word “hope” because with something like substance use disorder or addiction, hope is the one thing that can get someone across to the other side and into recovery. So I really like that we highlighted hope. Day of HOPE started out as a Narcan event and has grown into like a community collaborative where we really kind of open up to the community with all the resources that we have for behavioral health, overall wellness, and substance use disorder treatment, and bring all our community partners to the table for the community to come out and ask questions, and discover ways that they can get into recovery or sustain their recovery or support a loved one who’s working on getting into recovery. So it’s a really great day.

Kathy Williams: Well, I remember last year you were hoping to just get a few people.

Kellie Niese: Yes.

Kathy Williams: And hand out a possibly a few right doses of Narcan and it went crazy. You had a great turnout.

Kellie Niese: It did. It was a beautiful day. We had a lot of people from all over our community come out and see us. But I think what was really great is just the warm reception that all of our community members and partners in treating substance use disorder were out too. So we had, I think 20 different organizations represented with resources and different ways that people can kind of manage their health, manage their pain, manage their recovery. And it was just so cool to see everyone come together on a day that we recognized the epidemic of opiate use disorder and really come out to support our community. It was really awesome to see.

Kathy Williams: It was awesome. And I’m sure this year’s event’s going to be just as great.

Kellie Niese: Yeah.

Kathy Williams: I know even, you know, for people that maybe aren’t affected, but just want to learn more information, it’s a great venue to, you know, be able to talk to some experts in all these different areas. And even if you’re not the one in need with the opioid epidemic going on, like it is, we’re all going to be touched in some way.

Kellie Niese: Right. I always say addiction is something that doesn’t just affect the individual that’s struggling with it. It really is an entire family disease, an entire community disease. And so I’ve never met one person that is solely affected by addiction, right?

Kathy Williams: Right.

Kellie Niese: There’s a mother, a brother, a sister, a loved one, a spouse that is also affected and they need support and resources too. But really more than anything, we need to know, especially in Lenawee County, that it’s okay to talk about addiction.

Kathy Williams: Yeah.

Kellie Niese: It’s okay to admit that you have struggled with something like this, and the more we start talking about that as a community, the more we have things like Day of HOPE, the better equipped we are to manage this epidemic and hopefully treat it more like the medical and behavioral health condition it is, and not treat it with judgment and shame.

Kathy Williams: Yeah, we talk about getting rid of the stigma.

Kellie Niese: Yes.

Kathy Williams: With any kind of mental health issue, substance abuse and such, it is easier to talk about it to people who are going through it or have gone through it.

Kellie Niese: Right.

Kathy Williams: And this kind of gives you that open door, I think the Day of HOPE does, you know. The door’s open come and talk to us and see if you’re at that point where we can help you.

Kellie Niese: It does. You know, I’m a nurse by profession, but when I started working as the Pathways Program Manager, Pathways Engagement Center downtown is staffed by peer recovery coaches. So that is people that have recovered from a substance use disorder and are now working in recovery treatment. And I have never in my medical career seen someone get through to someone in a way that a peer can. Someone that has walked a similar road and has complete compassion, no judgment, and just wants to sit down and figure out where you are in life and what you need to live a happier, more well life. That’s what a peer does.

Kathy Williams: Yeah, and it’s so much easier sometimes to talk to someone like that rather than a family member.

Kellie Niese: Right.

Kathy Williams: Or your, maybe even your physician, that you can open up to somebody who really does get it.

Kellie Niese: Yeah. And doesn’t judge.

Kathy Williams: Exactly.

Kellie Niese: I mean, who else needs more judgment right? When you’re in a vulnerable position. So, that’s what peers do. And I think that that’s what the Day of HOPE brings is just a real, a platform for people to feel safe, a platform for people to feel comfortable enough to talk about struggles they may have encountered, or really just admit “I don’t know where to go for help”. And so at the Day of HOPE there will be peers and there will be people talking, maybe giving testimonials of how they reached recovery. And hopefully through that, we can find some hope.

Kathy Williams: There you go. Kellie for our listeners, if there they’d like to find out more about Pathways even, how can they do that?

Kellie Niese: So, lots of ways. So there is a Day of HOPE Facebook page, Pathways Engagement Center also has a Facebook page, and then the Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition, LSAPC, has a website as well. All of them have links to all the community events that we have going on in our county. In addition, Community Mental Health, that’s our organization that Pathways falls under. So anyone in need of immediate help can call Lenawee Community Mental Health and get more information about the Day of HOPE, about Pathways, or how to get connected to services.

Kathy Williams: Well, thanks so much, Kelly. And again, it’s Day of HOPE. It’s August 31st from two to six, and it’s at the Adrian farmer’s market, right downtown Adrian.

Kellie Niese: Yeah.

Kathy Williams: Thanks so much, Kellie.

Kellie Niese: Yes. I hope to see everyone there.

Woman’s Voice: Thank you for listening. This information has been provided by the Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition. Supported by funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration. New messages air on the first and third Monday of each month at 6:15 p.m. You can listen to this program as a podcast under the audio tab on WLEN.com and listen and gather more information at DrugPreventionLenawee.com.

Apr

2022

WLEN Interview with Cradle to Career Director Tim Kelly

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Kathy Williams: This is Kathy Williams. And with me on tonight’s program is Tim Kelly. Tim is the Social and Emotional Learning Coordinator at Lenawee Intermediate School District, LISD, but importantly tonight, he is the Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition’s chairperson of Prevention and Education. Tim and I are going to be talking about the upcoming Drug Take-Back event. Tim Saturday, April 30th.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. 10:00 to 2:00 at ProMedica Hickman Hospital. Please, yeah, everybody come on out and dispose of those meds. It’s a real simple process. You just drive around back, follow the signs, and someone will direct you on in there. You can even say “hi” to Kathy as you go by. She’s always out there.

Kathy Williams: If you come during the broadcast.

Tim Kelly: During the broadcast, okay. Well, if you do give her some coffee, she’s… it’s kind of cold. She’s standing out there while.

Kathy Williams: Thank you, yes, it does get a little bit cold. So it’s a national event. We had a couple of them last year that were very successful and the Drug Take-Back itself is happening from 10 o’clock, till two o’clock on the 30th.

Tim Kelly: Yeah.

Kathy Williams: If you’ve been to the Charles and Virginia Hickman Hospital, you’ve seen the big, giant COVID signs where you go back for your COVID testing, and that is where the Drug Take-Back itself will be happening.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. You don’t even have to get out of your car. They drive you right through the tent that they have there. And there’ll be people there to take your medications or inhalers or liquids…

Kathy Williams: Sharps.

Tim Kelly: Or even syringes. Yeah, sharps. They, they can take all that stuff. The only suggestion I’d have is that if you have stuff in a bottle, you remove your name or identifying information from it, but they’ll take it right in the bottle. These are students at the Pharmacy College down at University of Toledo. They will bag it all up and ship it out of here.

Kathy Williams: I did like watching the procedure last year, too, because there were you know, quite a few people that maybe did not mark out their information. And so it’s, it was interesting to watch the students as they sorted everything for “This is a pill, this is a tablet, this is a liquid…” Even the salves and lotions and stuff. And they were very meticulous at making sure the information was marked out or taken out of the original container. And then I found out that all those containers then were incinerated. So if you don’t get it taken care of, they certainly will when you drop off your drugs.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. This being a national event, you know, it’s basically from the DEA and they make sure that everything is very secure. The Lenawee Sheriff’s office will have a couple of deputies out there to make sure. So yeah, you can be pretty confident that all your information is… can be disposed of correctly.

Kathy Williams: Yes. And you know what, the other thing that I kind of want to be sure people realize is that we’re having this in April. We’re also gonna have one in October. Personally, we had a friend who passed away and her husband didn’t know what to do with all her drugs. She had a rather large container in a… like a Tupperware thing.

Tim Kelly: Yeah.

Kathy Williams: And Doug grabbed him and said “My wife will take care of that for you”. So, you know, that’s the kind of thing though, to keep in mind, you know, if you’re emptying out someone else’s house, help them get rid of these things in a good way.

Tim Kelly: Yeah.

Kathy Williams: You can also go on a website, DrugPreventionLenawee.com, and tell us about other disposal sites that you can use throughout the year.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. Most law enforcement offices have what’s known as the Red Barrel that people can dispose of stuff anytime during the year. And it is important to get it out of there, get it out of your house. You know, in Lenawee alone, 52% of the people that abused substances got them from a friend or a relative. And a lot of that was maybe taking from a medicine cabinet or finding something that a family member had had prescribed to them somewhere in the house and using it, so…

Kathy Williams: Right, right. And things that are expired. It just amazed me on last year’s Drug Take-Backs, how many people had expired medications. You don’t save it for the next ear infection because you need new stuff by then.

Tim Kelly: No. Right.

Kathy Williams: So, you know, eardrops, eyedrops, even pet medications can all be disposed of at the Drug Take-Backs. It’s… Make a quick sweep of your house, put it all in a big bag and bring it out to us on Saturday the 30th.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. That… We’d really appreciate it. And then if you can’t, you can take it to those other locations throughout the year.

Kathy Williams: Yeah. Now some… I believe on the, DrugPreventionLenawee.com website and Facebook, it also tells, you know, some of the restrictions that might be involved with some of those other locations throughout the year. Sharps may be one of the things that this is the best way to get rid of those.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. There are restrictions at places like Meijer that do return some things, but, sharps – a number of pharmacies will sell you a container for sharps.

Kathy Williams: Yes.

Tim Kelly: If you need one throughout the year.

Kathy Williams: Also people don’t necessarily think about over the counter medication. That also can be brought. It’s amazing how many expired vitamins we might even have or food supplements, you know, all kinds of things like that. So it, you know, our goal tonight is to kind of put that bug in people’s heads, take a look around, get rid of it. Be happy with the empty spaces in your cupboards maybe.

Tim Kelly: Fill them up with something new, but don’t, just don’t flush them down the toilets or throw them down the garbage disposal.

Kathy Williams: Please don’t.

Tim Kelly: Those types of things end up in the drinking water.

Kathy Williams: Right.

Tim Kelly: They literally soak into the earth.

Kathy Williams: Long-term they… everything is affected.

Tim Kelly: Yeah.

Kathy Williams: Tim, other ways that they can find out information about the Drug Take-Back?

Tim Kelly: You already mentioned it, but the primary way’s through DrugPreventionLenawee.com, or through links on WLEN – on their webpage. So, yeah, those are probably the two prominent ways, but again, throughout the year, contacting law enforcement is a real solid way to figure out where you can drop-off stuff.

Kathy Williams: Alrighty. Well, thanks Tim. We hope to see a lot of people drive by and drop off their drugs. Saturday, April 30th at the ProMedica Hickman Hospital from 10 o’clock to two o’clock. Thanks for being with me.

Tim Kelly: Thank you.

Nov

2021

WLEN Interview with Cradle to Career Director Tim Kelly

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Kathy Williams: This is Kathy Williams. And with me on tonight’s program is Tim Kelly. And we are going to be talking about how the drug take-back event went on Saturday, October 23rd. And Tim, I think we had a good turnout.

Tim Kelly: Yeah, we did. We actually had more people than we did back in April.

Kathy Williams: Okay.

Tim Kelly: We had about 325 people come through.

Kathy Williams: Very good.

Tim Kelly: Yep.

Kathy Williams: You know, and it was interesting. Of course, we’re going to talk about the numbers and we, we did take in a little bit less items.

Tim Kelly: Yeah.

Kathy Williams: But we had a lot more people participate. And so, you know, that’s one of the key things is to just be able to reach more people and help inform them on safe ways to dispose of their non-usable drugs anymore. And, you know, just things that are outdated. And Tim, why don’t you run through some of the numbers for us?

Tim Kelly: Sure. Well, we had a total of 342 pounds of substances returned to us and kind of to break that down: there was 163 pounds of tablets or capsules, that type of medicine.

Kathy Williams: It’s hard to even visualize …

Tim Kelly: Yeah.

Kathy Williams: 163 pounds of tablets.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. Little teeny tablets and they’re 163 pounds.

Kathy Williams: Yeah, it’s crazy.

Tim Kelly: Liquids, we had 165 pounds of those.

Kathy Williams: Okay.

Tim Kelly: 12 pounds of inhalers.

Kathy Williams: Wow.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. And then, we had 8 38-gallon containers of sharps. So if you can imagine 38-gallon containers, eight of those full of needles.

Kathy Williams: Full of needles that are thankfully disposed of properly at this time.

Tim Kelly: Yep.

Kathy Williams: I know it was nice too, that we, we did have some people go pick up things from their neighbors and from people that couldn’t make it out there themselves. And so that was, that was wonderful to see neighbors, helping neighbors to help clean out their cupboards and such. It was also interesting, I think, that we did have more people that showed up this time.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. You know, you had mentioned that more people is more important than the weight.

Kathy Williams: It is.

Tim Kelly: You know, tablets only weigh so much, but the more of those we get out of people’s homes is the better for the whole community. So, having a lot more people was great.

Kathy Williams: Exactly. And with not having a drug take-back in 2020, our overall poundage was huge this year.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. When you think of the overall there: 625 people in the two events.

Kathy Williams: Yeah.

Tim Kelly: For a total of 813 pounds and 18 38-gallon containers of sharps.

Kathy Williams: Right.

Tim Kelly: So that is… that’s a lot of stuff.

Kathy Williams: You know, and you just think about it. It’s not getting flushed down the toilet. It’s not getting put in our garbage dumps, you know, it’s, it’s being disposed of properly. And, and so I think that that’s a big testament to Lenawee County. People are wanting to do the right thing. We just got to make sure they know how to do it.

Tim Kelly: That’s right. Give them the place to do it. It really, you know, it does speak well of, of this community and their willingness to get the stuff out of the cabinets and getting it back to some places safe and can be disposed of.

Kathy Williams: Exactly. Now we are going to have another one next April. In April, 2022, but in the meantime, you know, some people prefer not to store things that long. And we’re hoping that they, that they don’t. But if they do, they can bring it to us in April. Where are some other locations though, that they can dispose of their expired medications at this point?

Tim Kelly: Well, there’s a number of law enforcement agencies that will take them. They have what’s called the Red Barrels.

Kathy Williams: Okay.

Tim Kelly: I’ll list those for you: Adrian Police Department, Blissfield Police Department, Hudson, the Sheriff’s Department, Morenci’s Police Department, Raisin Township, Tecumseh. You can also take them to Hickman Hospital.

Kathy Williams: Okay.

Tim Kelly: As well as now there is a container at Meijer that people can drop things off, but I’d encourage you, you need to check first because they don’t take sharps or things like that.

Kathy Williams: Right.

Tim Kelly: They might be able to be taken back other places.

Kathy Williams: Okay.

Tim Kelly: The other thing are Hudson Pharmacy and Schmidt and Sons, they both sell containers for your sharps.

Kathy Williams: Oh, okay.

Tim Kelly: Which is a really important thing. People were questioning that: “Where could they get those types of things?”

Kathy Williams: Well, and we did ask people when they came to the drug take-back to keep their sharps in a separate container when they dropped them off. And so it, it always is a good idea to keep those separate in your home as well. Of course, there are also a lot of people we want to thank for helping to make the October drug take-back such a great event.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. Just to name a few of those.

Kathy Williams: Yeah.

Tim Kelly: It kind of takes a village to do this.

Kathy Williams: It does.

Tim Kelly: The University of Toledo’s College of Pharmacy had students there and they did a lot of the heavy lifting.

Kathy Williams: They did.

Tim Kelly: The County Sheriff’s Department. You know, because this is a DEA event, there has to be law enforcement there and it’s very structured and they, they do make sure things work smoothly, but David Aungst and Jacob Pifer were both out there. So we appreciate their help with it. WLEN obviously; and the people at ProMedica Hospital: Christina Bell and Frank Nagle in particular; and one other person that really, she stays behind the scenes on this a lot, but she does a lot of things, is Madeline DeMarco.

Kathy Williams: Yeah.

Tim Kelly: From Lenawee CMH and if we didn’t have Madeline, I don’t know what I would do.

Kathy Williams: I don’t think we’d be, you or I, would be nearly as organized as we are. Well, and we also had a special feature this year: WQTE, a local country station, was also live at the drug take-back this year. So, you know, like you said, it takes a whole village, and so we tried to get the word out every way we could, and hopefully people were well-informed. If they are looking for additional information though, at this point, they can still go to the drug take-back website.

Tim Kelly: Yup. Drug Prevention Lenawee.

Kathy Williams: Yes.

Tim Kelly: That’s the Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition’s website. And, it can direct you to a number of resources that could help you if you’re looking to get rid of some medication.

Kathy Williams: There you go. And, we’ll be drawing a winner. We have over $300 worth of gifts that we’re going to be given away. And actually that drawing happened this morning. So someone’s winning some great prizes just for participating in our sweepstakes.

Tim Kelly: Yeah. Okay. Very good. We appreciate those entities that provided us with things from Suburban Chevrolet, Jiffy…

Kathy Williams: Jiffy Mix, yes.

Tim Kelly: I don’t know what they’re called: Jiffy Corporation, I guess.

Kathy Williams: Yep.

Tim Kelly: And Sweet Boutique also gave us some stuff too, so lots of people.

Kathy Williams: Yeah, and we have Tuckey’s Big Boy in Tecumseh, and also Kapnick Orchard. So, you know, some just, you know, fun things that, we’re hoping to gather some important data on how to reach people a little bit better, so. Well, thank you so much, Tim, for joining me and we hope things stay quiet for a while.

Tim Kelly: Yeah, see you in the spring.

Kathy Williams: Thanks.