by Paul Martin
This year, more than 9,000 Americans walked together in over 100 cities and towns across the country.
Virtually none were not seasoned campaigners.
There were moms and dads and sisters and brothers and grandparents who had lost someone they loved to fentanyl and refused to let another family suffer the same loss.
Together, they organized their communities, wrote thousands of letters to congress and began building something that did not exist before—a coordinated national movement led by the families most affected by the fentanyl crisis.
Watching that movement grow has been one of the greatest privileges of my life.
In 2024, after spending a year working in a rural New Mexico community and seeing the devastation caused by fentanyl up close, I launched United Against Fentanyl.
I had listened to people struggling with addiction, mentored teenagers at the local high school, and led a team of social workers helping a homeless 14-year-old girl whose mother was addicted find a safe home.
I came away convinced that families deserved more than sympathy. They needed a way to find one another. They needed a way to organize their cities and towns and in doing so turn unimaginable grief into lifesaving action.
United Against Fentanyl has created a model that combines the courage and determination of ordinary people with technology, national coordination and community organizing.
In our second full year, families across the country have shown what that model can achieve. We produced these outcomes on $1,000 per month in labor
Education: 9,000 Americans’ participation in Walk for Lives educational events in over 100 cities and towns, all led by bereaved family members.
Advocacy: 5,730 letters sent to Congress to help pass common-sense laws, 90% from bereaved parents.
Community: Over 800 new members of the Fentanyl Families Network to receive grief support and paths to action to bring local change.
Partnership: Over 500 community partners, including a national partnership with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Media: Over 2 million media impressions, over 130 news outlets, 110 media markets.
Social Media: Over 1 million social media content views, over 30,000 engagements, 700,000 accounts reached.
The impact report for Walk for Lives 2026 is here.
We are moving forward.
On September 25 and 26 we will bring “Washington Weekend” to our nation’s capital with three groundbreaking events.
Hill Day: hundreds of bereaved family members will take to the halls of Congress to advocate for common-sense, bipartisan, legislation.
Walk for Lives DC: Hundreds already booked. We will see our 2026 community participation surpass 10,000.
The Summit on Synthetic Drugs: Bringing together leading experts along with bereaved families to discuss the international and national threats and organize around a coordinated response.
UAF Chapters: We will be establishing 10 new UAF chapters by year’s end contextualize our work state by state.
Earlier this year, a colleague who leads a nonprofit asked me, “How do you produce these results on $1,000 a month in a few paid interns?”
My answer was, “With people who care.”
Across the nation they are telling their stories, educating their communities, supporting one another, and fighting to protect families they may never meet. Our role is to give that courage the infrastructure, coordination and tools it needs to become a lasting national force.
Imagine what these families could accomplish if the foundation supporting them matched the scale of their commitment.
With critical funding, we can strengthen the systems behind this movement, support more communities, mobilize more families, and greatly expand the scale and scope of this lifesaving work.
This year, more Americans between the ages of eighteen and forty-five will die from illicit fentanyl than from any other cause. An estimated one million parents are grieving the loss of a child.
Please consider making a gift today to help these families build a united response and protect others from experiencing the same devastating loss.
Lastly, this is a note I received. It’s one of dozens from mothers who have shared their story with us. All convey the same sprit of unity and hope:
“As we looked around Levi Plaza in San Francisco, we realized we had brought together people who don’t always stand side by side—grieving families, people in recovery, physicians, the DEA, elected officials, students, and community advocates. For a few hours, titles didn’t matter. We were simply people united by one belief: every life has value, every story deserves to be heard, and together we can save lives.”
– Michelle and Micah Sawer, stepmother and father of Micah, forever 22 (pictured together at left)
