No one 'left behind'

NORWALK — Sandy Mesenburg lost her brother to an opioid addiction. Now, she's fighting back through the newly created nonprofit she formed and named in her sibling's honor. Mesenburg, of Norwalk, started the Russell Bouchard Addiction Recovery Fund, whose mission is to help finance community members' addiction recovery and provide resources to help them achieve successful transition to recovery living. The organization was formed in 2020, three years after Sandy's brother Russell died from an overdose at the age of 39. Sandy said Russell's battle with addiction started after he fell off of a roof and hurt his back. He was prescribed the highly addictive painkiller Oxycontin. "He wound up getting addicted to it," Sandy said. "He (then) turned to the streets to get the medicine so he wouldn't go through withdrawals." Russell eventually tried to get clean but started using again after a breakup with a girlfriend. "It doesn't take much," Sandy says. "Addiction is so strong. That call is always there." The goals of the Russell Bouchard Addiction Recovery Fund are: • To ensure community members are not financially burdened by the cost of in-patient treatment, so they can concentrate on their treatment plan, stay on the path to sobriety, and maintain their treatment plan until they can successfully transition to an Intensive Outpatient Program and/or Transitional Housing by providing available funds to individuals in need through an application process; • To be able to provide valuable resources from our network of community addiction support programs, services, and providers in the form of written materials, links on our website and social media accounts, and direct referrals, and; • To provide a safe social media space on the "Ohio Sober Living" Facebook Group for community members to come together to provide or receive encouragement, support, and information on events, meetings, housing, transportation, and any other information that is helpful to aid in the pathways to success. Sandy said her organization set a goal of raising $10,000 this year. "We want to get the word out about who we are and what we do and just try to help as many people as possible," she said. The organization has lofty goals. "I would like to see that there are no community members left behind," Sandy said. "Either I can help people directly or I know someone who can help." Sandy is the executive director and she has a board of 11 with three officers. "We have a great board in place as well as a fundraising committee and we have some great ideas for the future," she said.