GREAT PAIN LED ME TO HELP OTHERS

I lost my brother to a heroin overdose in 2013, and in his memory, my family and I started a nonprofit organization called The Chris Atwood Foundation to fight the opioid crisis by training friends and family how to use a medication that can revive someone from an overdose.

We’ve saved over fifty lives since last year. This work has been very therapeutic for me in my grief, but running the organization on a tight budget, with no staff, and no experience in nonprofit management, has been a crazy, stressful, uphill battle for me.

The BALM and the BALM Coach Training forces me to look deeper into my feelings, to take time for myself, and has given me better coping tools to deal with stress. It has grown me as a person as well as a leader. I’m not taking coaching clients yet, but the BALM program is showing me how to provide proper support to families who come to us looking for help.

My family had such a hard time finding adequate education and support when Christopher was alive, and I am very grateful to be able to point other families in the right direction.

Ginny Atwood-Lovitt
BALM Coach Trainee
Virginia