Have You Heard the News?

Crescenta Valley community, have you heard of The Chace Taylor Malone Impact Foundation LA (ImpactLA) and its project CV Cares?

For those who don’t know us, and even for those who do, we will be sharing our column in the CVW today and in upcoming months to help reach out to the community.

There is a silent battle going on in this community. There has always been a struggle to bring attention to the misuse of drugs and how it affects communities. But don’t be fooled; this is not about communities other than our own.

There has always been a trend to kick the “drug use can” down the street stating that it was the problem of others and it would never affect our family, our youth, our adults … but that is exactly what is happening and why we need ImpactLA and CV Cares.

Why would we put our health, our relationships and our very lives on the line for a substance (drugs) that kills everything in its path? COVID put a spotlight on this very question. We have not taken care of our own mental well-being.

“In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by a massive 25%,” according to a scientific brief released by the World Health Organization (WHO). “One major explanation for the increase is the unprecedented stress caused by the social isolation resulting from the pandemic. Linked to this were constraints on people’s ability to work, seek support from loved ones and engage in their communities.” 

But these factors were part of everyday life for so many – even before the pandemic. When people do not have the support and resources to work through these factors they often turn to self-medicating, even when they know the possible outcome. Yet, they are so overwhelmed by the struggle they think this will “numb the pain.” When suffering and struggling without support and resources self-medicating becomes its own war – and in any war there are causalities and losses.

I write this and share this with you as the mother of a son who died in 2021 of an accidental overdose. In the height of the pandemic, Chace Taylor Malone died from a pill tainted with Fentanyl. The anguish and despair that was brought not only into my life but the lives of our family members and Chace’s friends led us to gathering and discussing how this happened. We spoke about the struggle we individually watched and experienced Chace go through. We wanted to understand how this happened to someone we loved so dearly and who loved all of us. What I came to understand, after the fact, was that although my son had friends from all groups and ages and he gave them so much in support and care, he struggled. He had what I thought were bouts of depression. I thought they were situational. I did not understand at the time he suffered with functioning depression, which led to isolation. He would become anxious. This vicious cycle of functioning depression, isolation and anxiety continued for years. Looking back, the cycles were not just situational; they were how he was struggling through later years of his life.

Because of the love, support and encouragement he gave to those he knew throughout his life, when we lost him so many he had touched reached out to us. We truly saw the “Impact” he had made on so many … not just here in the Crescenta Valley, but everywhere he had been. His closest friends – Jerry Lee Butt III, Ryan Shumway, Taylor Poage, James and Kate Heinemann, John Song, Robby Alonzo and Matt Trowbridge – suggested to me and Chace’s older brother Blake Malone and Jordan Marshall that we do something to share the essence and loving support Chace gave to those around him but that he couldn’t give himself. They wanted more than a scholarship in his name. They asked, “How do we share and express the impact of Chace Taylor Malone?”

And thus, The Chace Taylor Malone Impact Foundation LA was created. Months after our submission to the IRS, The Impact Foundation LA Inc. was given 501(c)(3) nonprofit and 509(a)(2) public charity status. Since then, the IFLA has supported eight different individuals with resources including direction to local professional support services. Some of these referral participants have also received financial funding support. Through our fundraising and donation support, the IFLA can provide financial support when needed and when our funds are available. The IFLA has helped a young man get off the streets and into rehab. We have a participant of our efforts now thriving and working with our organization to help others who want to meet their own healthy lifestyle choices. And only two years into our efforts we met [now former] CVHS students Rebekah DeBoskey and Payton Ashe who offered to lead the way with their peers as student ambassadors.

We’ve connected the IFLA with the CVHS on-campus WellNEST and provided opportunities for IFLA to get involved and support the students on campus in ways that include tabling during “awareness weeks,” bringing speakers for specific topics and connecting with other campus clubs and associations.

After that connection came the idea from Mary O’Keefe to start a community coalition. The coalition bridges organizations and services in the community to move and act on issues facing the community that align with the IFLA’s purpose and endeavors. The Crescenta Valley Substance Misuse Prevention Coalition, aka: CV Cares, was created in 2022 and by 2023 was awarded a grant from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) as a program of the White House. CV Cares has mobilized and taken the student ambassador program forward with more than 10 new student ambassadors added for the fall.

That is basically our origin story and we are constantly moving forward to bring awareness and support to the community. Last weekend we were at the CV Chamber of Commerce Hometown Country Fair where we shared demonstrations on how to use naloxone – Narcan – nasal spray, which can mean life or death to someone who is overdosing. We also were able to give Narcan nasal spray away, for free, to those who watched the demonstration and completed a short survey.

On Tuesday, we began our Summer Speaker Series with a discussion on hypnotherapy by Carmela Tunzi, founder of Mind Flow Hypnosis/Sherman Oaks Hypnosis. We will offer more through our speaker series in coming months.

The team has so much it is working on. When you see or hear about IFLA and CV Cares you will now understand who we are and what we do here in your community.

We know that local problems require local solutions. We hope to be part of the solution to face the struggles we all encounter in our own ways.

“Because It Matters”

You can reach out via:

https://theimpactfoundationla.org/ and https://theimpactfoundationla.org/cvcares  and donate at https://theimpactfoundationla.org/donate.

Victoria Malone, Executive Director, IFLA
Program Director, CV Cares