Bay Area parents tackle fentanyl crisis, provide potentially life-saving drug: Here's how

PETALUMA, Calif. (KGO) -- A North Bay couple and their organization is fighting the fentanyl crisis one old newspaper box at a time. They're repurposing and filling them with a potentially life-saving drug.

Michelle and Micah Sawyer are on a mission.

"Unfortunately, we get to know a lot of parents who have lost," said Michelle.

The couple lost their son Micah Jr. to a fentanyl overdose in 2019. They went on to start Micah's Hugs, a nonprofit raising awareness about the drug overdose crisis.

"We've been going out the last 3 or 4 years doing a lot of education training at different places sometimes groups of 150 to 200 people. And we always give out Narcan to anyone that comes to our training," said Michelle Sawyer, Micah's Hugs.

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So they, far they've doled roughly 13,000 boxes of Naloxone spray also known as Narcan.

Their latest effort, they stuffed old newspaper boxes with the nasal spray that can reverse a fentanyl overdose.

"We actually, there was an idea, and we saw some other people that were doing vending machines to do Narcan. And we thought it was a great idea. But when we went and looked at the vending machines, there were these electronic vending machines that were selling for $15,000. We thought that was kind of ridiculous, that amount of money that we could put to some other good," said Micah Sawyer, Micah's Hugs.

And so they reached out to the local paper, The Press Democrat.

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Micah said, "They're happy to help us. And they gave us these old boxes, and we sanded them down, and I painted them. And Michelle got graphics done to put all over the sides of them."

The newspaper boxes are complete with a QR code on how to use the nasal spray. And on the sides of the boxes, a reminder of those lives lost.

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The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department says in 2024, there were 110 fatal overdoses. While that's down from 155 overdose deaths the year before, the department says that is too many and some are far too young.

"Unfortunately, we have two babies that we've lost in Sonoma County. And our first one here, is Baby Liam. Him and his dad passed away from fentanyl," said Michelle.

And on the other side, Baby Charlotte.

"She was just one year old. It's just heartbreaking," Michelle said.

So far, the couple placed four of these boxes throughout the county, and have more on the way.