We wanted to contribute to the life and health of our community. But how? By leaning in to an issue that has deeply affected both our teams and our neighbors.
In the face of a 43% spike in opioid overdoses in Minnesota from 2020 to 2021 and the troubling ascent of diseases of despair, SixSpeed refused to sit on our hands. We are an agency of action, after all – one with personal ties to this issue.
Though we may not be doctors or seasoned social workers, we wanted to use our industry expertise to turn nothing into something for our neighbors and our city. We got busy crafting a zero-cost, zero-judgment solution – The Overdose Prevention Project.
The audience? Us. All of us. Diseases of despair are indiscriminate. The opioid crisis affects thousands of individuals and their loved within their communities, and millions more across the nation.
Despite there being widespread understanding that opioids are a public health crisis, the stigma surrounding it means that readily available life-saving measures are hard to come by. But there's no reason we shouldn't think of naloxone like a defibrillator – an easy to access resource for anyone in need, when they need it. So we figured that if we could deliver that, we should.
One of the challenges of any harm reduction initiative is overcoming public stigma and misunderstanding. From a visual and access standpoint, SixSpeed wanted to provide a welcoming and accessible point of first contact. Our team set out to design a low-fuss distribution system based on familiar, off-the-shelf medicine cabinets gussied-up with a friendly, approachable gradient design and hyper-legible font.
Our first hurdle was to figure out the legalities and supply-chain issues associated with stocking the Overdose Prevention Project stations. First, we secured a non-profit partner in Southside Harm Reduction Services. They were not only an invaluable resource for all things harm reduction (including advising us on the best ways to store naloxone) but they also took the time to come and train our staff. From recognizing the signs of an overdose to proper administration, to legal issues surrounding giving life-saving help, they brought SixSpeed up to speed. Then we had to secure a wholesale supplier once it was legal over the counter. And finally — and most importantly — find venues brave enough to host a station that might just save a life. It surprised us how many calls we had to make, presentations we had to give, and doors we had to knock on to hear “yes” a handful of times.
The next step in making the Overdose Prevention Project real was figuring out how to raise enough awareness of the problem and money for our modest solution. Of course, we socialized Overdose Prevention Project across the usual social platforms. But putting human faces on this most human of issues meant getting with people in person. So in November 2023, we hosted our One For All fundraiser, featuring a silent auction, music, and speakers affected by the issue. Several hundred members of the community attended, and helped us raise a boatload of money – every penny of which goes towards restocking the harm reduction stations with supplies.
Since September 2003, we've erected and stocked numerous harm reduction stations across Minneapolis in collaboration with Southside Harm Reduction Services. These stations stand ready to accommodate 30 boxes each of NARCAN® naloxone nasal spray and fentanyl test strips —available free of charge, free of judgment. Our to-date donation total is more than $16,000 – proof that our neighbors care as much about this critical issue as SixSpeed does.
And the effort garnered some awareness of its own. The Overdose Prevention Project was covered by MPLS Egoist, Yahoo! News, Star Tribune, and local broadcast media outlets WCCO-TV, KARE-11, and KTSP (to name a few). It was also honored at The Advertising Federation of Minnesota’s The Show – an industry event to shine a light on the best agency work of the year. SixSpeed took home a number of accolades, including Best Out-of-Home Self Promotion Campaign and Best Integrated Media Campaign for its work with the community and on Little Free Revivery.
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