Save a Life Day (West Virginia)
Also: Save a Life: Free Naloxone Day · Appalachian Save a Life Day
West Virginia DHHR Office of Drug Control Policy and SOAR WV annual free-naloxone day (US-WV), first held in 2020 in two counties (Kanawha and Putnam), statewide in all 55 counties from 2022 and expanded to 13 Appalachian and Southern states as Appalachian Save a Life Day in 2023, with pop-up sites, mobile teams and training publicized each September during Recovery Month.
- Years
- 2020–now
- Country
- United States
- Budget
- DHHR Bureau for Behavioral Health provided 'a record $600,000 worth of naloxone' for the 2023 event (DHHR, Sept 2023).
- Topic
- Harm reductionOpioids
- Asks people to
- RecognizeStart
- Strategy
- Multi level communitySimple instruction
- Channel
- EventsWebsite
- Audience
- General public
Evidence
Self-reportedUnknown
Sponsor and press report distribution counts only (e.g., more than 2,000 kits in Kanawha County in 2023 and about 30,500 doses statewide in 2024 per West Virginia Watch headlines); 2025, the first national day: 1,044 events and 132,959 naloxone doses (savealife.day). No outcome evaluation.
Sponsor (who paid)
- West Virginia DHHR (now Department of Human Services) Office of Drug Control Policy and Bureau for Behavioral Health State local government, organizer and naloxone funder
- SOAR WV (Solutions Oriented Addiction Response) NGO, co-organizer
Credits (who made it)
Not recorded yet.
Executions (individual ads)
- Appalachian Save a Life Day announcement (DHHR, 14 Sept 2023) 2023 · events · sponsor-site
Sources
Research notes
US-WV. Event-based naloxone distribution with earned media rather than a paid ad campaign; included because it is the state's main recurring public naloxone push. DHHR says the first event was organized by ODCP with SOAR WV in two counties, all 55 counties took part in 2022 and 2023 added 12 more states. Search results (WV Watch, WVU Medicine, WV MetroNews) were not opened (403); the 2024 count and the statement that 2024 naloxone came from State Opioid Response funds come from search snippets only. No agency involved. No settlement funding source found. Discovered 2026-10-22 for #17. Procurement search 2026-10-22: no award or contract naming a vendor for this campaign was found (USAspending subawards, state/local procurement and spending portals where searchable, settlement reports, web search). Campaign site https://savealife.day (fetched 2026-10-22; savealifewv.org cited in news does not resolve). Sponsor-reported: on 25 Sep 2025, the first fully national Save a Life Day, 1,044 events in all 50 states distributed 132,959 naloxone doses (savealife.day).
Record cases/wv-save-a-life-day.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign