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Project Bald Eagle disbands as funding dwindles

Project Bald Eagle, formed in 2014 to combat the ever increasing problem of the opioid epidemic in Lycoming County, announced it has eliminated the nonprofit’s board of directors and stopped the many projects the organization has done to raise awareness in the county.

This happened after a recent effort by the nonprofit to regionalize, according to Davie Jane Gilmour, chairwoman of the coalition and president of Pennsylvania College of Technology.

During its December meeting, the board unanimously approved to regionalize the program to surrounding counties in an effort to make a larger pool of resources to attack the problems facing the region and to garner funding from state and federal agencies. The key partners the nonprofit needed to succeed in regionalizing wanted to stay localized, Gilmour said.

“The future funding was tied to the concept of regionalization,” Gilmour said. “If we weren’t going to go regional, the funding wasn’t available. Therefore, it put into question the ability for the board to continue without those abilities.”

Despite Project Bald Eagle ending as an organization, Gilmour remains hopeful the work the project has done, including getting local departments and health care providers to carry Nalaxone and educating the community on the dangers of opioids and habits leading to addiction, has helped change attitudes in the four years since it was formed.

“We talked to young people about not sharing drugs, not taking more than you are prescribed. We know that’s how it starts,” Gilmour said. “I think there has been significant increase in the awareness of the opioid problem and how it impacts every aspect of our lives.”

Another major change since the nonprofit’s inception has been the state and federal declarations of the opioid crisis as state and national emergencies and the work at both levels of government with combating the problem.

“The work Senator Gene Yaw did with the Center of Rural Pennsylvania continues to shape laws on how prescription drugs are handled,” she said. “Single-county authorities and treatment facilities now have access to state and federal funding that they didn’t have access to in 2014.”

The biggest hurdles moving forward in the fight against opioids will be expanding resources to help those effected by heroin and opioids to find jobs and housing and continuing to raise awareness that the epidemic effects all age groups and nationalities, Gilmour said.

The next group to pick up where Project Bald Eagle left off, Gilmour hopes, will be key health providers that can expand their resources to include increased community education.

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