At one of our KELOWNA International Overdose Awarenes Day organizing committee meetings, we were chatting about what we might be able to do, for ourselves and to create more awareness around IOAD and our presence as members of MomsStopTheHarm

I have always been so impacted by the photos around Remembrance Day. To see those crosses representing all those lost in war was so powerful to me, the sheer numbers they portrayed was mind blowing. Crosses are not necessarily religious symbols in my mind, but we certainly understand their meaning, “ somebody’s someone had died”, and we pay them respect with the cross.

We decided, a photo of all the local members we could gather, in a field, holding a cross, dressed in black. Before the end of the meeting we had come up with the measurements for the crosses. Pam Turgeon made a phone call to Nicole Richard, a local photographer with Wax Pencil Imagery. Nicole was totally on-board and really excited about the project, so we then agreed on the date, August 9, which was 10 days later. I am telling you these girls were not sitting on their hands.

The predicted weather for August 9 was rain and lightening, no one even questioned, should we change the date?

Leslie Mcbain co-founder of MomsStopTheHarm was coming for a visit, so I made a cross for her as well. We had an IOAD meeting the day before and Leslie was able to meet MSTH members she had never met before.

Fast forward, we met in Knox Mountain Park and I believe out of the hundreds of shots Nicole took, the one we settled on was the first photo taken. The sky opened up behind us and beautiful rays of light shone down. You have all seen the photo, it took our breath away.

The photo was more amazing than we anticipated.....the bonding of these women around doing it was heartwarming, empowering.

Well you all know what happened from here, we reached out to media and the photo went viral. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/…/article-a-portrait-of-lo…/

The response to the photo was staggering, the photo lab techs at London Drugs in Kelowna were in tears, the request for the photo to be hung in people’s places of business were none stop.

Jill McCullum had the brilliant idea to approach B.C. Transit about running the photo on a bus and their response was positive. It is actually The Lamar Companies that has the contract to do the advertising for BC Transit. They agreed that all we would pay would be the hard cost of creating the image for the bus. BC Transit gave us approval. Pam and I met with Lamar and decided on the message, simple, quick to read and we hoped impactful. We also decided on 10 city buses for 8 weeks, longer if no one asked for space.

October 6 at 7 am they launched the bus ad. These buses will be seen thousands of times by thousands of people over the next 8 weeks.

Where are we going from here? Presently we are working on gathering the funds to have this image on a digital billboard on highway 97. Both sides of the board for a period of 36 weeks.

So now you see it. I could not be more proud of the MSTH members that helped create it. As in all we do, it was a labour of love. It is somewhat shocking for us as we see the bus a multitude of times during our daily outings in Kelowna, but every time we see it we are reminded of our depth of love and commitment to MSTH and the work we do.

Helen Jennens - Forever Rian and Tyler’s mom