Nikole Babb
nbabb@cherryroad.com
The El Dorado Community Coalition is excited to take a trip to Overland Park in April to speak as a panelist during the Kansas Municipalities Fight Addiction Regional Summit.
The Regional Summit will bring together municipalities and organizations throughout Kansas to learn from each other in an all-day conference with featured speakers. The goal of the conference is for participants to take home ideas on how to better fight drug addiction in not-so-traditional forms while providing access to resources to those looking to take the first step in the recovery process.
The El Dorado Community Coalition was formed in October 2024 after merging two organizations; the El Dorado Resource Committee, which pooled together resources for certain issues, and the Opioid Taskforce, which was a committee dedicated to fighting opioid addiction through education and voucher access. The two were merged in an effort to tackle challenges together instead of needing to form a new committee each time a new challenge arises.
Among the El Dorado Community Coalition are members from industries with resources and local leaders such as healthcare, pharmacy, addiction services, mental health services, recovery services, media, emergency services and more. They meet twice a quarter to discuss challenges they’re facing in the opioid addiction fight, organizing educational town halls and creating a safe community for those brave enough to start the recovery journey. From time to time they’re offered to attend seminars and conferences to further unite resources across the state and learn how to better the coalition locally.
The Coalition is funded by settlement funds awarded by the Municipalities Fight Addiction Fund (MFAF), which was established through the Kansas Fights Addition Act passed by Kansas Legislature in 2021. This allows the state to disperse the funds recovered by the Attorney General’s Office in legal settlements against major pharmaceutical companies, distributors and related firms that fueled the opioid crisis.
Since the inception of the former Opioid Taskforce and the now El Dorado Community Coalition, the organization has been awarded $79,003.13. They’ve utilized $28,373.21 of that to pay for Narcan vouchers, a guest speaker on drugs and addiction for El Dorado High School and donations to the Substance Abuse Center of Kansas and Second Chance Ministries. The Coalition was awarded an additional $1,942.94 on February 7.
Narcan is a drug used to reverse an opioid overdose by blocking the effects of opiates on the brain and restoring breathing. It comes in a nasal spray for easy application. The vouchers are printed by Butler County Printing located in El Dorado and redeemed through El Dorado TrueCare Pharmacy. Since disbursement of the vouchers, Butler County Sheriff Monty Hughey and El Dorado Police Chief Michael Holton have both said they’ve seen the amount of overdose calls decrease.
As of now Chief Holton is attending the Regional Summit to speak on the panel. A second member from the Coalition is being offered to attend but hasn’t been filled yet.
“I’m excited to hear from other communities,” said Chief Holton. “We know what it is we’re doing. We don’t know what it is that everybody else is doing and I’m excited for all of us to get together to share that information so we can look at what we’re doing here and see if there’s anything that we could be doing differently.”
There are currently 49 members on the Coalition that vary in industry and organizations including El Dorado TrueCare Pharmacy, South Central Mental Health, the El Dorado Clinic, Susan B. Allen Memorial Hospital, the Substance Abuse Center of Kansas, Seventh Direction treatment center, 2nd Chance Beginnings, the Butler County Times-Gazette, local business owners and many more.
If there is an organization or business that has a helpful resource in the community and is interested in being on the Coalition, contact Chief Michael Holton via email at mholton@eldoks.com or by calling the El Dorado Police Department at 316-321-9120. The group meets about twice quarterly.
