Berkeley Needle Exchange (N.E.E.D.)
To provide harm reduction supplies and education to east bay community and beyond. Learn More
Donate Fundraising: The Berkeley Need Charitable Trust
The Berkeley Need Charitable Trust
Your donation goes to support the core mission of:
The Berkeley Need Charitable Trust, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
OUR CAUSE CONTRIBUTION:
$325
Top Fundraisers
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$150 raised |
Recent Cause Activity
Nineteen years ago the needle exchange in Berkeley started. We sent Jack there because we were all too chicken. Fours years later I got clean. I started to do their trainings to work for NEED but moved to Santa Rosa. We helped a rehab start the exchange there. That lead to various outreach worker jobs which lead to working for a health department from which I got laid off when Enron ripped off California. That lead to nursing school, which coincidentally I finished today, the same day that congress repealed the federal ban on funding needle exchanges.
Had they not started the exchange in Berkeley in 1990, many of the instances of bleaching shared needles would have been just sharing needles and I would have certainly been infected with Hep C or HIV or both. Over many years my gratitude upon realizing I was infected with neither lead me to continue to work at exchanges wherever I am. I know from attending conferences that this is also the case with many other exchange workers.
Today I'm not sure if I should be angry because the government ignored the science for 23 years and let tens of thousands of people get infected even though there was a simple and cheap intervention that would have prevented it; or if I should feel grateful to have been able to do a medical intervention that is illegal, moral, and allows me to break the law on a daily basis.
I don't know but I'm pretty excited about the prospect of being able to pull down enough funds to build some infrastructure for the future. In my reality everybody matters and I am not ever going to settle for anything less.
PS - send NEED all your cigarette money.
Stephanie Yang about 1 month ago
Donated $30.
Updated: The cause has raised $100.
Help prevent the spread of diseases caused from needle sharing.