66 MAY 2019 WOMANSDAYMAGAZINE
Inspire / SMALL-TOWN SAMARITANS
disease. The simplest
solution—a needle-
exchange program that
would allow intravenous
drug users to swap dirty
needles for sterile ones
free of charge—was hardly
simple. “At that time
needle exchanges were
against the law statewide,”
Brittany says. Like many
residents of her county,
she wasn’t convinced they
worked anyway. “I thought
that giving needles to drug
users could be enabling
them,” she says.
When she was tasked
with breaking the news to
a drug user that he’d been
diagnosed with HIV, her
feelings changed. “These
are people who already
have lost everything, and
now they have a dangerous
disease,” she says. “I knew
I had to help them.”
Delving into 20 years
of research convinced
Brittany that needle
exchanges worked—or
should work. But when
the Scott County needle
exchange opened at the
health department, no
one showed up. “People
were terrified that the
cops were watching
them,” Brittany says.
That spring of 2015,
she packed a health
department van with fresh
syringes and biohazard
bags and hit the streets
of Austin. “Do you need
needles?” she’d ask
passersby. “Do you know
where we can go to find
people who are using?”
After several long, empty
days, one young woman
approached, looking for
needles. Brittany swung
open the back of the van.
Suddenly, people emerged
from every house on the
street. “We finally had
a line,” she says.
Four years in, the spread
of the virus has slowed but
not halted, and Brittany is
still out there offering the
most vulnerable residents
lifelines: insurance help,
vaccinations, regular HIV
testing, and a way into
drug rehab for those who
are ready. “We always ask
if they’re ready to quit.
You never know when they
might say yes,” Brittany
says. Since the outbreak,
the number of participants
enrolled in substance
abuse recovery groups
in Scott County has
increased by 500%.
A few of the people who
were spurred into recovery
now work with Brittany at
the Scott County Health
Department. “Almost four
years ago, there wasn’t
a safe place to ask for
help,” says Kelly Dean, a
high school classmate of
Brittany’s who has been
in recovery since 2015.
“Here, where I’m at today,
it’s a safe place.”
Long before “Uber” became a verb, Carmen
Lopez, now 71, used her Honda Civic to ferry
neighbors in and out of Huron, an agricultural
town in California’s Central Valley. In Huron,
there’s no place to buy a dress, deliver a baby, or
attend high school (teens ride the school bus to a
town 30 miles away). With most residents living
in poverty, many in the heavily Latino community
don’t own a car. That transit gap can turn a
doctor’s visit or a missed school bus into a crisis—
except for those with Carmen’s phone number.
Carmen was once a young mother herself,
begging relatives to drive her sick daughter to
the emergency room. “I told myself that when
I had a car, I would give other people rides,” she
says, and for 20-plus years now, after having
stepped away from a mixture of domestic work
and agricultural work, she has. In 2018, Huron’s
new Green Raiteros rural ride-sharing program
formalized her efforts. Locals can arrange a ride
with Carmen to a neighboring town to, say, pick
up a prescription in exchange for a small fee or
gas money. Often people ask to go for rides just
to chat w ith her, and once a pregnant passenger
delivered a baby in her front seat en route to the
hospital. It’s all part of a job that makes her feel
useful, Carmen says—“like I serve a purpose.”
A RESIDENT RIDE SHARE
This retiree has a license to help.
Carmen Lopez
HURON, CA
POPULATION: 7, 3 1 1 MILES TRAVELED: 222,000
Carmen Lopez
(in white) with
local residents.We always ask
if they’re ready
to quit. You
never know
when they
might say yes.”
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