Angela Kennecke: 0:07

Drug overdoses and fentanyl poisonings are the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 44, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the statistic is alarming, numbers alone can feel abstract for many. The true weight of the crisis doesn't sink in until they see a face or hear the story behind the loss.

Barbara Francois: 0:29

There is a stereotype for people who are in addiction and it's not true. and then when people read their stories and put that together with their face and they say, oh, that sounds just like my brother, or my father or my sister. they really understand it.

Angela Kennecke: 0:48

And this episode of Grieving Out Loud, I'm sitting down with the directors of a powerful nationwide nonprofit using art to Shine a light on the Fentanyl crisis. The Into Light Project creates detailed graphite portraits to remember people who've died from fentanyl poisoning and drug overdoses. Their work is not only raising awareness, but also offering healing to families who've lost loved ones.

Barbara Francois: 1:14

They can walk in and look at a portrait. And a mother in Maryland did this and said, this is the first time at I can hold my head high. I. at high. It just makes them feel like, you know, not only is their loved one being honored, but their life meant something.

Angela Kennecke: 1:32

Welcome to Grieving Out Loud. I'm your host, Angela Kennecke Before we start this important conversation, I wanna speak directly to anyone who may be struggling with substance use disorder. You are not alone and your life matters. Please know that help is available. We have a list of resources on our website, Emily's Hope Charity. You can find a link in our show notes. Theresa and Barbara, welcome to Grieving Out Loud. I about Into Light from a friend of mine, a fellow mom in North Dakota who was hoping to bring your exhibit to her. And she says, you have to see this. And as a mom who's lost someone to Fentanyl poisoning and, and who lost an artist, it was especially appealing to me I'm just really excited to talk to you about. This big project that you're working on and what you're doing and why.

Theresa Clower: 2:32

Thank you. so glad that the word is out there throughout the country because that's exactly what we're hoping for.

Angela Kennecke: 2:40

That's Theresa Clower, the CEO of INTO Light Project. She founded the nonprofit after experiencing a devastating personal loss, the death of her third child. Devin

Theresa Clower: 2:53

How do you describe Devon? First of all, as he grew, he kept growing, and he was very thin and very, very tall. So the way to summarize Devin is to say he was our exclamation point. He was full of life. Funny gregarious. sharp witted. he was always kind of in the mix of anything rambunctious or, you know, outgoing. So you'd find him as a kid on skateboards and bicycles, and he was very athletic. So he was well adjusted then come. Sometime in high school years, he started experimenting with marijuana and we knew about that.

Angela Kennecke: 3:37

Theresa says things really started to take a downturn when one of Devin's friends offered him an oxycodone for back pain. That one pill began a decade long struggle with substance use disorder, Had he moved on from pills to heroin. had at the

Theresa Clower: 3:54

very end.

Angela Kennecke: 3:55

Yeah, and that's so typical. I mean, that is a this, trajectory that my daughter followed and so many others. And I think as parents, we're just even, even to this day, all these years later, I'm horrified to say that, to say that my daughter was using heroin. And I bet you feel the same way.

Theresa Clower: 4:12

Absolutely. And I remember one of the counselors laid that on me that, you know, when he's, and, Devin even said, because we were talking about the idea of, treatment and how far along are you? And I said, well, he's certainly not using a needle of any kind. And he said, mom. I am, you know, I

Angela Kennecke: 4:33

Hm.

Theresa Clower: 4:34

that so clearly because you know, it just indicated to me how far into this disease he truly was.

Angela Kennecke: 4:42

Those 10 years of substance use disorder, kinda toll did they take on you and your family? I.

Theresa Clower: 4:50

It was rough. You know, Devin went from, like I mentioned earlier, this gregarious, fun-loving middle child, part of the family to this individual that you never knew who you were. Going to meet. He could be very angry. could be you know, rummaging through the basement looking for things that he could hawk. But at the same time. You know, we never stopped loving him, and we never stopped. Supporting him. We didn't subscribe to the tough love situation as a family. We felt that it is a disease. We were knowledgeable enough to know that this was not something Devin could really control. Yes, he needs treatment, but we need to be there to support that. So it took a great toll on the family. his. Older brother tried very hard to find him work and then he was disappointed with his out, you know, basically, Devin disappointed all of us in so many ways. So we all pitched in and did what we could then eventually it got to the point where. you know, he was isolating himself.

Angela Kennecke: 6:03

And I think Theresa, that we really do lose our kids before we physically lose them. You talk about that time period and how he was a different person, and I could say the same about my daughter. I started with the tough love in high school, but soon realized that wasn't working. It was just pushing her away. I was told to do a lot of that, you know, by counselors and different people, experts who were telling me how to reign. My daughters. Seemingly outta control behavior in, I too also always approached her from a standpoint of love and acceptance and unconditional love. I realized that those things that were so hard to do, those tough love things that were so hard to do, weren't working. But I remember clearly remember a day that I was in her room. And she was still alive. She had moved outta my house and I just felt like my daughter had died because she was no longer my daughter. Like, this was not my kid. so it's this complicated grief. It's so complicated when someone suffers from substance use disorder

Theresa Clower: 7:11

and it's hard because it's not pleasant being around someone who's stealing from you, who you can't trust to be in your home. It's an ugly disease and I understand where people are put off by it. It's not fun. it tears people apart. It tears families apart, but at the bottom of it all is a human being. And that's so much of what we and INTO LIGHT Project are ourselves of constantly. these are human beings

Angela Kennecke: 7:44

and Devin did seek help. He tried several different programs after battling the disease for 10 years. He completed a treatment program, and this time seemed to be doing very well. He had a full-time job, was living on his own, and was staying away from substances.

Theresa Clower: 8:02

And then he had a date. He had his first date in a long time, and that unglued him because it was a perfect storm of him having some money. He had a car. We were out of town, so he was borrowing our car and he had this date and that was when he ingested this poisonous. It was cocaine. I believe that ultimately with Fentanyl.

Angela Kennecke: 8:26

Yeah.

Theresa Clower: 8:27

with the onset of fentanyl in so much he, as you said, like your daughter was poisoned and he was poisoned because he, he did not anticipate that whatever it was that he was taking at the time had fentanyl in it.

Angela Kennecke: 8:44

In February of 2018, Devin died from fentanyl poisoning At 32 years old, Theresa was heartbroken. In the midst of her grief, she found herself reaching for a pencil and paper, turning to art as a way to cope with the pain.

Theresa Clower: 9:02

And I decided that the way for me personally to work through so much of that grief, especially early into it, was to draw his portrait. And that was the beginning of the project. I have a fine arts background, Oh. had not been practicing of my art for 45 years. And I had never done a portrait. So where this all came from is a mystery to me. But it exploded. and once I finished Devin's portrait, and it was really cathartic, really powerful, I was saying goodbye to Devin in the process. And when I signed my name, the floodgates just opened. And with that. I could not stop thinking about portraits, drawing portraits, and to make it, meaningful because, you know, I could do busy work, but to make it meaningful, this kernel of an idea began taking shape. Like could we simply represent this epidemic in a way that draws people together? Tell the stories, draw the faces, and really portray those that we've lost to this epidemic is to you know, portray them as human beings.

Angela Kennecke: 10:24

Because I think so often our children are judged. Solely by how they died. So they were a drug addict. They were less than human in some cases. I've even heard comments on social media, they deserve to die, these kinds of things. I, I even hear comments on social media now, that just are so outrageous that we shouldn't be providing Naloxone to people because if they're using drugs, they should die. you know, these kinds of ideas that we have in our society. And so I think. What you're doing is incredible because you are trying to preserve the humanness.

Theresa Clower: 11:02

Yeah, and we have a, a saying, we, we really live by this principle and everything about INTO LIGHT. They're graphite portraits, so they are pencil and most people think in terms of portrait being color. We very intentionally chose graphite. And everything about it, the name of the organization. And the reason for that is with graphite, we say that, we all are made up of light and dark, and no one should be defined by simply their darkest moments. So, we really do believe that you know, there's, that opportunity or that ability To be hateful, to be any number of things, but that's not the whole you, and so why should we judge those that are dealing with this hideous disease in a manner, like it's their fault, they're bad people, et cetera. Yeah.

Angela Kennecke: 11:57

Right. So very important. You did a, drawing, first of all, you had that skill even though it was very. For decades, you had that skill, but also very important, you do this instead of a photograph of people, right?

Theresa Clower: 12:09

Yeah, definitely, again, everything is really, really thought through. all see thousands of images a day, truly between internet, you know, everywhere you go there's photographs and they're so ubiquitous, they've become almost, non impactful. Whereas if you a drawing done by hand, done by a human being with care it will stop you dead in your tracks. And there's something about the eyes in these drawings. You have to get that just right. And it's powerful. this is an art activist project. Art has an ability to span, conversations hard bridges that we have to cross together. It has, and historically always had that ability to, Bring people together in a way that a photograph couldn't do

Angela Kennecke: 13:14

so you do this drawing of Devin you get this idea, did it just come to you suddenly, or how did that evolve?

Theresa Clower: 13:24

I do a lot of hiking and especially back then I was doing a lot of meditation and, and just soul searching shortly after Devin died. And I remember clearly this spot in the woods where oh, this light bulb went off. and it was really funny because, you know, I didn't have any idea how this was going to roll out, with Devin's death being in Baltimore I thought, well. That's where the first exhibit, I'm gonna do 41 people, and that was based on the number of people that die every five hours and that was very intentional as well because we wanted the media us about the number. And then we could talk about the outrageous number of deaths at that time. So it, did beg the question and it did serve a purpose. But yeah, I remember exactly where that spot was.

Angela Kennecke: 14:21

Some would call that divine inspiration, that moment in the woods.

Theresa Clower: 14:25

I have no better way of explaining it, so, Yeah.

Angela Kennecke: 14:29

Yeah.

Theresa Clower: 14:30

the fact that I'd never done portrait work. That's scary to me.

Angela Kennecke: 14:34

Theresa also believes it was divine intervention that led her to cross paths with Barbara Francois who would eventually become the COO and a narrative writer for Inte Light Project.

Theresa Clower: 14:47

Barbara and I had not met each other. We were at a Martin Luther King breakfast in February, so it would be just about one year after Devin died, and I had done his portrait in the fall of the year dot, so 2018, and I knew I was heading in this direction, but I met Barbara, who is also an artist, I wanted to see her artwork, so I said, I have an idea. for some reason there was just an energy and connection with her that I felt very confident it would be helpful to talk with her about this idea. So I brought over a big pot of lentil soup and some bread, and we sat over lunch and I said, this is my idea. What do you think? And she said, this goes down in the history of this organization, Theresa. You can't, not just, you cannot. How does it go,

Barbara Francois: 15:34

You can't not do this.

Theresa Clower: 15:36

Do this.

Barbara Francois: 15:36

You have to do it. Yeah.

Angela Kennecke: 15:39

Theresa says, Barbara was the perfect fit to help launch into light.

Barbara Francois: 15:44

have a background in my family with addiction. I've been affected by it on many levels. I'm also a educational psychologist and a writer and an artist, not a portrait artist. And all of those things appealed to me. And I'm always looking for why people do what they do as a psychologist and why people behave the way they do. And, you know, trying to find the humanistic side of everything. There's always a reason there's something going on. You not just random. And so I really was intrigued. I wanted to, help tell the stories of, people who had died this way, because it's important, it's important work, and humanizing addiction is really necessary. Right. we tend to dehumanize it. That is really what we do with all the Mm-hmm.

Angela Kennecke: 16:41

out there, and that I know still exists, you know, to this day because I see it or hear it day. What do you think it's going to take to do away with all of this stigma and for people to really understand addiction as a disease of the brain?

Barbara Francois: 16:58

I think exactly what we're doing. is definitely one of the biggest things that you can do is to humanize people so when you see their faces and tell their stories. we tell the stories in a way that you know, it shows who they were as a complete human being, not just their addiction. That's certainly a part. I mean, we can't deny. That was a part of course, but there's so much more than that. And when you walk into one of our exhibitions, it looks like it could be a group of people who just won. Scholarships or an award for something. You know, there's not any particular one look, but there is a stereotype for people who are in addiction and it's not true. And then when people read their stories and put that together with their face and they say, oh, that sounds just like my brother, or my father or my sister. they really understand it. They make that connection by looking into their eyes, seeing their beautiful faces, and reading who they were as complete human beings. Have you lost a loved one to overdose or fentanyl poisoning? I'd like to invite you to share their story on our new Emily's Hope memorial website called More Than Just a Number. They were our children, siblings, cousins, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles, and friends. So much more than just a number. You can submit a memorial today on more than just a number.org.

Angela Kennecke: 18:39

The organization launched its first exhibit back in 2019, honoring 41 people from Maryland who lost their lives to fentanyl, poisonings, overdoses, or related causes. Each hand-drawn portrait is paired with a personal story that shows who they were, not just how they died when the exhibit wraps up, each family receives their loved ones framed portrait and a book that includes all the stories from the exhibit.

Theresa Clower: 19:07

There was literally cold calling people who we'd find names from obituaries or someone would refer us to someone in Baltimore. And we had very little to show. We had no exhibit. You know, we had a very, very simple website that's how it began.

Angela Kennecke: 19:27

Yeah. Was it hard to get that first exhibit up off the ground and going

Theresa Clower: 19:31

mm-hmm.

Angela Kennecke: 19:32

Mm-hmm.

Theresa Clower: 19:32

a little challenging in that we didn't have a track history. but we were able to fill it and, we've had more challenging states since then. Truly. There's so much stigma still out there that, there are states that we have dealt with that we were not able to get people all 41 slots filled. So, that blows my mind.

Angela Kennecke: 19:53

Here's how the project works. Families submit photos and stories of their loved ones who have died. From there, a professional artist creates a hand-drawn portrait and a professional writer crafts a narrative that honors the person's life.

Theresa Clower: 20:10

And then the artist and writer worked directly with the family. communicating the, you know, first drawing they'll send to the family. What revisions need to be made? So we work closely with each family and it isn't until the family says that's. My loved one. That's the story I want portrayed that we stop. So we go through as many revisions as necessary in order to get to that point. have a goal of one exhibit in every state in the country. We're now working on our 17th state. By next year we have already lined up two more states and we're hoping to line up two more. it's a long range project. If we could find maybe someone, one of your listeners can help with this, but if we could find a, for this organization. We could knock it out of the park. In term, we have the support nationally with the artists and the writers. And so we could really probably accelerate twice as quickly, but for now we're very comfortable with that.

Barbara Francois: 21:21

one of the things that, first of all, it brings families together and community. At our openings and at our gifting gathering, the portraits are gifted at the end of the exhibition and they have a lot of support and community of people who understand what they're dealing with and what they're going through. So that's really important. But more than that, they're proud. proud. they can walk in and look at a portrait. And a mother in Maryland did this and said, this is the first time at I can hold my head high. I. at high. It just makes them feel like, you know, not only is their loved one being honored, but their life meant something. And you know, they knew that, but not everyone appreciated 'em. And so they feel like, you know, this is a place of honor and they're so grateful grateful be able to participate and to. You know, help others to understand the stigma around drug addiction and feel like they can enter into conversation with them.

Theresa Clower: 22:29

Our exhibits are held generally on. College and university campuses. And the reason for that is, is that so much a part of this organization is education. So we bring the portraits, the writing statistics, and all of that to an exhibit I. And it acts as a catalyst for conversation and opening up conversation about addiction. So when you put, the exhibit on a gallery on a university campus, then you have all those disciplines from the different colleges who can come together. They come together and, bring the exhibit into their coursework, which is fabulous. I. also have had exhibits, of course, in other places like museums, you know, in Delaware, art Museum uh, the History Center in Florida, which was wonderful. They did oral histories on top of our work. So we're pretty flexible. But we definitely emphasize the educational component important to us. One of the interesting little side projects, I guess it is that came about is we have what we call our ask me about button campaign. And we reproduce every single portrait on a button a little. two inch and a half button, and then on the back of the button is a QR code that takes you to the story of that person. Every one of the exhibit is asked to participate in this effort to open conversation by taking a button of someone they resonate with and wearing it, and it is what we call our walking exhibit. And it has been a phenomenal success. We have kids in spring breaks doing an entire town in Colorado with the button campaign. We've had police officers in Mobile, Alabama wearing them during prevention week. You know, it's just, been a really good addition to our original work.

Angela Kennecke: 24:27

What a great concept. I love that and then you also put together a, beautiful book that. You leave the people with as well.

Barbara Francois: 24:34

Yeah, it's a wonderful bound catalog is beautiful, and when you open it on one side of the page is the narrative and the other side is the scanned portrait. And so everyone goes home with that as well. After our gifting gathering.

Angela Kennecke: 24:51

Right now into light has two exhibits on display. One at the University of Iowa running through mid-December and another at the University of South Alabama. Open until the end of June.

Theresa Clower: 25:04

Once we complete all of our states, our goal is a national exhibition. We archive everything. It's professionally scanned and archived. We're being very, very protective about this body of work because it's pretty unique. And then our goal is to reproduce this entire exhibition of over 2000 portraits and narratives and take it to DC at a time when. Hopefully this epidemic will have a little bit better outcomes when this happens. But that is our goal to keep that memory alive as well as this body of work that can provide so much information about the families and the people have struggled with this disease. As one of the nation's strongest financial organizations, first Premier Bank and Premier Bank Card have the strength to do good. We support nearly 700 organizations and nonprofits. Our employees give more than 30,000 volunteer hours annually, and we are continually seeking ways to make South Dakota an even better place to live. It's the premier way, first Premier Bank and Premier Bank card.

Angela Kennecke: 26:20

And in, in addition, you have some curriculum. Somebody wrote some curriculum surrounding this as well.

Theresa Clower: 26:25

Yeah, a seventh grade teacher in Colorado Shannon Herzog, shout out to her because she works for an EL school, which is experiential learning school system required a unit on epidemics. Shannon has a seventh grade group of students, and rather than talk about historic epidemics like a black plague, she decided to do what is a current epidemic and very meaningful to middle school students. So she wrote a 10 week. Curriculum that she basically has gifted to us, which is fantastic. So we are in the, early stages of gathering surveys and piloting that so that we can potentially roll that out as well.

Angela Kennecke: 27:14

Now that's a process as well as an organization that has its own substance use prevention curriculum. I, I know about the process of making it evidence-based and, and it takes a while to get there. but we've been working for several years on ours as well. And so I think any way that we can work together and teach children, you know, there's just so many aspects of this that they should be learning about and it's essential.

Theresa Clower: 27:37

Yeah.

Angela Kennecke: 27:38

so you mentioned the ultimate goal is to up having been in every state with a final exhibit in dc I mean, I think about how. Fentanyl has killed more people than all of these wars combined. And I think about going, you know, to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC and seeing just the names and how powerful that is to see all the names together and you realize the magnitude, and this is so much greater than that.

Theresa Clower: 28:08

Yeah. Yeah. don't anticipate a memorial, but it would be definitely, I think something that, I mean, I envision the mall covered with these portraits from every single state in the country. I. but you know, that's down the road. We have a lot of, mileage to cover first

Angela Kennecke: 28:28

Lots of states to go yet.

Theresa Clower: 28:30

Lots of states It's just picking up though, you know, and the bottom line is, and I'm sure you realize this too, Angela, you know, you have to be able to fund all of this. It's one of the things that we have never skimped on. Everything is professionally done. you know, we take each portrait and its custom made framing

Angela Kennecke: 28:49

And with current cuts to universities and government and all the federal funding that state governments are losing, that could be an uphill battle for you

Theresa Clower: 29:00

Yeah, for sure. So we're looking at all of that, but we still keep our eye on the goal. You know, there's such a need. We have an amazing team now of people, primarily women I might add, but for people around the country who have been invested in this project now. And it's not just Barbara and me., We have a whole group of people that are very, very committed to seeing this happen.

Angela Kennecke: 29:31

Theresa, has this project helped you with your grief?

Theresa Clower: 29:36

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. this is Devin, by the way. he's kind of like the poster child or he's on everything. He's on a lot of promotional and you, sometimes I'll open up a website and there is images, or I'll see it in a state and I think. We kind of joke a little in the family, like Where's Waldo kind of situation? Devon's in Alabama now and Devon's in, you know, all this. But this project has really given me an opportunity to, I. first of all, there's a great purpose for my, work there. It also allows me to take small bites out of my grief because if I had to sit in that space, especially early on, living with that kind of pain and that it, it, it's such a disconnect. It wouldn't have been good for me. So this has really. Been an incredible gift. I call it a gift from Devin in

Angela Kennecke: 30:32

Hmm.

Theresa Clower: 30:34

Sometimes I, ask him what the heck he got me into, but you know, I mean, this was supposed to be retirement, not happening for me.

Angela Kennecke: 30:42

Yeah, me, me either.

Theresa Clower: 30:44

yeah, yeah,

Angela Kennecke: 30:45

work to do And Emily's name. Yeah, I get it. I get everything that you're saying. It's it a beautiful thing.

Theresa Clower: 30:51

it's a really, really beautiful thing and what you're doing as well, it's just, I'm sure you can relate to the idea that, you know, it is their legacy. I feel so often that I, I think about Devin in the, 10 years before he died. He was really battling. And it's, it's a harsh word, but he was really in and out of treatment and trying so hard didn't work out for him, but his ability and his energy and his person could very well live on through this work. And that's how I look at it. It's an extension of who he was and I suspect you're feeling the same with Emily. It's like this is how we live on with them.

Angela Kennecke: 31:34

Yes. And I always say the work that I'm doing, I'm not a singer, but this is my love song to my daughter. And I think that we do do this as an, an honor of our children. it's a way to keep. Their legacy alive. It's a way to keep a piece of them alive. And my daughter also an artist, you know, which makes what you're doing near and dear to my heart because it involves art and we try to involve art as much as possible and the things that we do. And I just think that getting out of your own. Mock your own that that horrible place that we all go as, I'll just say moms.'cause we're moms here in this group talking today when we lose a child. But being able to rise above that and to do work that's meaningful, to help other people and to honor other people. You think about all of the people you are honoring through the work that you're doing.

Theresa Clower: 32:23

Yeah,

Angela Kennecke: 32:24

So important.

Theresa Clower: 32:26

yeah. I, feel very fortunate actually, you know, as hard as it is to go through what we've been through. I didn't waste any time. It was just like immediate. I knew what I

Angela Kennecke: 32:37

Yeah, me too. There are gifts that are left behind and it's really hard when you have the worst thing happen to you as a parent to look at it that way. Right. I think it takes years and perspective. There are gifts that come out of these horrible things.

Theresa Clower: 32:52

Yeah, for sure.

Angela Kennecke: 32:54

Yeah. And into light is certainly one of those gifts. So thank you for what you're doing.

Theresa Clower: 32:59

And thank you for what you're doing. it takes a tribe of people.

Angela Kennecke: 33:03

Yes.

Theresa Clower: 33:04

so

Angela Kennecke: 33:04

Yep. I always say. With this horrible epidemic, this drug and fentanyl poisoning epidemic, that it's taking a bunch of angry, I always say moms, but angry parents, you know, doing the work, doing the demonstrations, putting together the nonprofits and the exhibits and, with the AIDS crisis, that's what it took, you know, to get the funding to basically put an end to it being a death sentence. Right.

Theresa Clower: 33:31

Yeah.

Angela Kennecke: 33:32

that's what it's going to take. And it's taking in this epidemic as well.

Theresa Clower: 33:37

yeah. We have to hit it at the emotional level to make a change. You

Angela Kennecke: 33:42

Yes.

Theresa Clower: 33:43

all the statistics

Angela Kennecke: 33:45

Yes.

Theresa Clower: 33:45

the world about it. That's not gonna hit the heart. We have to hit the heart, that's really our goal, is to get that emotion. So that people are able to change their, their minds and their attitudes.

Angela Kennecke: 34:02

Right. Well, thank you for all the work that you're doing and I hope to be able to see this project, this exhibit in my state as well and many others. So thank you.

Theresa Clower: 34:13

thank you.

Barbara Francois: 34:14

Thank you, Angela.

Theresa Clower: 34:15

we appreciate our time.

Angela Kennecke: 34:18

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Grieving Out Loud. If you'd like to learn more about into like Project, you can find details in the show notes. And while you're there, we'd really appreciate it. If you took just a moment to rate and review this episode, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. Together we can make a difference and help change lives. Thanks again for listening. Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. This podcast is produced by Casey Wonnenberg King and Marley Miller. I.