LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kimberly McKinney has made it her mission to make naloxone accessible to people through selling her handmade "Save a Life Keychains."
Naloxone is the opioid overdose reversal drug. Part of the proceeds she makes from the keychains will go toward supporting people experiencing homelessness during the wintertime.
Each keychain has different designs, making each unique and one-of-a-kind.
“It comes with Narcan on it,” McKinney said. “It comes with a keychain and inspiring thing on it and then it comes with different cards that comes with help.”
Those cards have information on resources for things like recovery programs and counseling.
For McKinney, seeing her husband overdose right in front of her gave her the idea to start making the keychains.
“I didn’t have no Narcan, and I didn’t know CPR and I didn’t know what to do,” McKinney recalled. “My phone was dead. I had to get out in the middle of the road and beg for somebody to stop and help me.”
Her husband survived the ordeal.
“He was dead for over 10 minutes and when they had to give him CPR, they broke his chest bone and they had to give him six Narcans,” McKinney said.
That traumatic event inspired her to find a way to get naloxone into people’s hands by attaching them to the keychains she makes. They have also been a creative outlet for her while in recovery.
“It gives me a purpose, and it fills my time up ... I really feel like it’s a good thing to do,” McKinney said.
Access to harm reduction resources like naloxone is a big part of the work the Kentucky Harm Reduction Coalition does.
“There’s a duty now and a call to action to us as community members, as good neighbors, as residents of our community to have something that’s available to us,” said Shreeta Waldon, the organization’s executive director.
Waldon finds McKinney’s keychains innovative and sees them as a great way to normalize conversations around harm reduction.
“With overdoses, we have about seven minutes to start to respond and those seven minutes fly by when we’re panicking and we’re rushing and trying to figure out what to do so having easy access… you know, hats off to someone who says, ‘Hey, why not put it on a keychain?’ We all have keys,” Waldon said.
The naloxone is donated to McKinney from the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department and Voices of Hope. Half of the money she makes from the keychains goes toward craft supplies.
“The other half goes to the homeless in the wintertime, like, we buy blankets, we buy ramen noodles, and stuff like that… make a little kit for them in the wintertime,” McKinney said.
McKinney hopes people normalize carrying naloxone on them, even those who don’t think they’d ever need it. She stresses people never know when they might come across someone who could need the lifesaving medicine.
You can find naloxone through the Find Naloxone Now Kentucky website.