Trail of Truth Welcomes Core Planning Advisors Marketa M. Edwards, MaryBeth Cichocki, and Stephanie Almeida
Marketa M. Edwards (Left), MaryBeth Cichocki (Middle), and Stephanie Almeida (Right) have been hard at work planning the first ever National Trail of Truth
Trail of Truth is proud to announce our collaboration with activists Marketa M. Edwards (The Community Rising Project), MaryBeth Cichocki (Support After Addiction Death) and Stephanie Almeida (Smoky Mountain Harm Reduction).
The Community Rising Project is dedicated to the advancement of individuals of Color and those that support them, who are directly impacted by trauma and their involvement in the justice system. We are committed to those community members that have suffered oppression and harm due to racism, sexual violence, domestic violence, incarceration, homelessness and poverty.
Support After Addiction Death seeks to provide a safe space for parents who have lived their child’s addiction and now mourn their death. In this space there is no judgment, just understanding, compassion and knowledge that we are not alone on this journey.
Smoky Mountain Harm Reduction is a nonprofit that helps to keep people who use drugs and their families alive and healthy through a peer model. Their hybrid recovery center in Franklin offers drop in services including rapid HIV/HCV testing and referral to care, syringe exchange services, naloxone distribution, support groups, food pantry, drug user health, wound care and medical supplies, winter survival supplies, clothing, housing, and other services that help increase social determinants of health.
Stephanie Almeida is the founder and Executive Director of Full Circle Recovery Center and Smoky Mountain Harm Reduction, both located in Franklin, Macon County, NC.
Stephanie is a 2021 graduate of the Duke University Nonprofit Syringe Services Management certificate program. She holds credentials as a NC Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor (CADC), Certified Prevention Consultant (CPS), an ADETS Prime for Life facilitator, a CCAR Recovery Coach Trainer, and a Recovery Coaching Harm Reduction Pathway Trainer.
In the early 2000's, Stephanie founded one of the first opiate community prevention task forces in the nation at Somerville Cares About Prevention in Massachusetts. She relocated to NC in 2007 and has been part of the solution since.
Stephanie founded the Macon Overdose Prevention Coalition and the WNC Harm Reduction Alliance, and was responsible for introducing lifesaving harm reduction services to the far western counties of NC. Full Circle Recovery Center was one of 18 agencies awarded the SAMHSA 2015 Rural Opioid Overdose Reversal grant, the first federal funds for harm reduction/overdose reversal in the nation. The ROOR grant brought much needed funds to provide prevention education and to purchase and distribute naloxone to the rural, Appalachian mountain communities they served.
Stephanie is a member of the WNC Homeless Coalition, NC Coalition to End Homelessness, NC Viral Hepatitis Task Force and the Syringe Services Advisory group, National Coalition for Harm Reduction Funding, NC Harm Reduction Advocacy group, SAMHSA's Harm Reduction Summit, NC Recovery Advocacy Project, Perinatal Substance Use Exposure Workgroup, NASTAD Regional Syringe Services TA, and the NC Survivors Union. Through her clinical knowledge and working in substance use for more than 20 years, she is able to bridge the gap between substance use prevention, harm reduction, treatment, recovery advocacy, and HIV/HCV.
Stephanie has been personally impacted by the war on drugs as a person in long term recovery. She lost her little brother Michael to an accidental overdose in 2011 and her brother Jimmy died by suicide in 2021. She has lost countless people to overdose over the decades. She now works to keep people who use substances and their families alive and healthy. Her motto of "Holding onto hope until the last breath is drawn" reminds her that there where there is breath there is life and hope. Never give up hope.