My name is Kristi (Emert) Ralston. I’m 33 years old and have lived in the Nordonia Hills area my whole life. I graduated from Nordonia High in 2002. When I heard about the heroin epidemic in Akron back in April I was shocked that so many people were dying from this bad drug. I’m currently in nursing school and lost a classmate to heroin. In July it really hit home for our family. My husband lost his cousin to the battle of addition at age 18. So many people were overdosing in July and many died in the area. I was so upset felt like nothing was being done. So I made a stand to speak out to get help out there for people that need it. I didn’t know where to turn or who to talk to. With many phone calls I finally got who I needed. Jamie Mackie works at the police station in Northfield Village. He could tell that I was so upset about this whole thing and I want to have a rally or something for people in this area to get the help they need, before it is too late. We had our first meeting in August I believe alongside of a mother who lost her son to the battle of addition. With another member that is in recovery and wants people to get the help they need.
We all came together to speak up and to get the help that this community needs. We had a few meetings with ideas on what we were going to do. We wanted this event to be big to help as many people, just not addicts, family members, parents that have young kids, to show them what to look out for before their child gets addicted to drugs. So we came up with a name for our group Nordonia Hills U-Knights I made a Facebook page for anyone to reach out to get help and also for the events we are going to have. We were kind of at a standstill with what to do, when to do it. I got Debra Wallace number was told to call her because she has done many things like this before and she works at Nordonia schools. So I did and I was so happy to find out that she already had big plans in the works for an Event on November 8th 6pm-9pm at Nordonia High school. I really don’t have that much of information about the event. When we get closer to the date I will know more. This community needs to speak up for the lost people from addiction, We need to speak up for our children. We need to speak up for this community to stop this heroin epidemic.
Kristi Ralston
