SAMANTHA CART
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KENSIE HAMILTON FAUBER
Film Screening Offers
Hope in the Face of the
Opioid Epidemic
As a quarterly magazine, West Virginia Executive (WVE)
strives to share detailed, in-depth stories of the Mountain
State’s best and brightest people, businesses and industries.
With this mission, timeliness tends to mean something a bit
different to the magazine than it does for daily news outlets.
However, WVE struck gold with its Winter 2018 issue when
the staff chose to interview the three women featured in the
Netflix documentary “Heroin(e).” It just so happened that
during the course of the issue’s production, the documentary
was named an Oscar finalist.
The official launch for the Winter 2018 health care issue
took place on February 22, 2018, at River Ridge Church in
Charleston, just days before the documentary’s filmmakers and
stars took off for their academy award press tour.
The launch event was a community screening of the doc-
umentary hosted by WVE and event sponsors River Ridge
Church and Celebrate Recovery, followed by a panel discus-
sion. The panel included five incredible West Virginians, all
of whom were featured in the Winter 2018 issue: Huntington
Fire Chief Jan Rader, Judge Patricia Keller and Realtor Necia
Freeman—the three women featured in the documentary—
as well as Dr. Michael Kilkenny, physician director for the
Cabell-Huntington Health Department, and Rebecca Crowder,
executive director of Lily’s Place in Huntington. Together
the five panelists answered questions concerning the use and
distribution of naloxone, the free syringe exchange program
and how small communities and individuals can help address
the state’s drug epidemic.
To view the panel discussion, visit https://vimeo.com/
257230305.
“I was particularly interested in this movie because it was made in West
Virginia about three women who are tackling the problem head on and
making a path for others to follow nationwide. I was thrilled that the
women featured in the movie were at the event—what a bright light of
hope these strong women provide in an otherwise dismal situation.”
– Elizabeth Kerns, Marketing Coordinator,
West Virginia Army National Guard
“As the vice president of Hope for Appalachia, a men’s drug recovery
program, I believe every person is of value and that addiction is treatable.
We need doctors, representatives, law enforcement and churches to
join and rally together, and we need people to financially support the
local organizations that are combating this issue.”
– Kyle Flanagan, Midstream Compliance Engineer,
Greylock Energy
“At River Ridge, we love our community, and we want to be a church
that talks about the real-life challenges we all face. We were happy to
provide a platform for the wonderful folks on the panel to educate and
inspire all of us to help fight against those challenges. My favorite part
of the evening was hearing from those five amazing people who have
all found a means of helping in their own way.”
– Keith Hoover, Pastor of Creative Arts,
River Ridge Church
“I think this was one of our most effective and powerful panels. For
me, it was a forum to speak of Christ and listen to others on the front
lines speak of Christ and the power to recover—from babies to adults.
What I hope others took away from the panel discussion is that as long
as there is a need, there is hope.”
– Necia Freeman, Realtor,
Old Colony Realtors
WWW.WVEXECUTIVE.COM
SPRING 2018
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