Founder's Note

HarborPath's mission has always been to serve unmet needs — and the people who carry that mission forward are often the ones who have seen those needs up close.

Kennedy Clarke is one of those people.

Kennedy is a track and field athlete at the University of Oklahoma, a school record holder in weight throw, and a top-10 finisher at the NCAA Championships. She is also HarborPath's newest student-athlete ambassador. Her reasons for joining this campaign go far deeper than athletics.

Growing up, Kennedy watched her mother provide substance abuse and mental health treatment for people leaving incarceration, seeing firsthand how access to naloxone changed and saved lives. 

In high school, a classmate died of a fentanyl overdose at 16 years old — a young man with a whole life ahead of him, whose father was Kennedy's own history teacher. That loss made the crisis vivid and personal in a way that never left her.

"Without naloxone, others across the United States are robbed from life," Kennedy has said. "It terrifies me to know that there is something that can help those who can't help themselves and it's not readily available to all."

That is exactly the problem HarborPath exists to solve. Through our awareness campaign at OU, Kennedy is directing fellow students to the free naloxone available at the campus health center.

College campuses remain among the most vulnerable environments for accidental overdose, and the most important places to reach young people before a crisis happens. That is the thinking behind HarborPath's approach at OU: putting the message in the hands of student-athletes like Kennedy, who can speak to their peers with credibility.

Making that outreach meaningful requires the right partners. FFF Enterprises shares our commitment to ensuring overdose prevention tools are accessible in practice, not just in theory. Their work distributing naloxone, including the ODRescue Kit, helps universities and schools put life-saving resources exactly where students need them most.

We are proud to have Kennedy on our team. 

You can listen to her share her story here.

-Ken Trogdon, President of HarborPath

A Family's Loss Puts a Spotlight on the SUDEP Information Gap

Nicola Burns was 41 years old when she died in her sleep. She had lived with epilepsy for years, managed her medication, and by most accounts was handling her condition well. Her family had no idea that people with epilepsy face an elevated risk of sudden death — because no one had told them.

Nicola's mother, Jo-Ann Burns, told BBC News that her daughter was never informed about Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy despite years of treatment. At a 2025 inquest into Nicola's death, a coroner questioned why SUDEP had not been raised with her and why a scheduled annual review had not taken place. 

"We feel robbed," Jo-Ann said. "Nicola was handling her epilepsy, taking her medication — but she nor us knew anything about sudden unexpected death."

Nicola's story is not an outlier. Each year, more than 3,400 people in the United States die from SUDEP, making it the leading cause of epilepsy-related mortality. Yet despite clinical guidelines recommending that patients and families be informed of the risk, the information gap persists. Too many families encounter SUDEP for the first time in a coroner's report.

You can read Nicola's full story in this news report.

Ken's Take

Nicola's story is heartbreaking. Her family deserved to know the risk existed. They deserved the chance to ask questions, adjust their vigilance, and make informed decisions about her care. That chance was never given to them.

This is why the HarborPath Policy Council is actively working in multiple states to advance SUDEP education legislation. Our advocacy is focused on practical, achievable policy solutions: requiring that patients and caregivers be informed about SUDEP at diagnosis and at regular intervals, improving death certificate reporting so we can better understand the true scope of the problem, and ensuring that families have access to the resources and tools that can reduce risk.

The HarborPath Policy Council exists because underserved issues do not advocate for themselves. Last month, we highlighted the story of Policy Council board member Hannah Whitten and the loss of her brother to SUDEP.  We are proud to stand alongside champions like Hannah in pushing for the policy changes that can close this gap.

News You Need to Know About the Fentanyl Crisis

• UTSA News: UT San Antonio launches naloxone vending machine on campus to combat opioid overdose
• Wyoming News Now: Health Department launches new online tool to help people find Narcan
• VA.gov: VA reaches milestones in lifesaving naloxone availability
• CBS News: NYPD narcotics dog that ingested fentanyl on the job saved by Narcan, detective says

Help us make a difference by providing lifesaving drugs to those in need.

Follow HarborPath's Work on Social Media