Dear Friends,
Thank you so much for supporting Lines for Life in the past year. We couldn’t do the crucial work of saving lives each day without our dedicated staff, community of volunteers, and committed folks like you.
It’s been quite a year! With new contracts and expansion of services, our revenue doubled from 2017.
In 2018, we expanded partnerships: working with hospitals across Oregon by providing follow-up services for individuals who are struggling with mental health and addiction. In April, we launched the Senior Loneliness Line in partnership with Clackamas County, to help curb the epidemic of loneliness and isolation among older adults. In May, we expanded the Oregon YouthLine, with a new satellite office in Deschutes County, connecting more teens to mental health resources. We grew our crisis call center to accommodate 30 new staff as part of our new Veterans Crisis Line contract. We now serve as their ambassador call center, providing nationwide support to military service members, veterans, and their families.
Last year our crisis line answered over 100,000 calls and the crisis line volunteers logged 30,000 hours, a 51% increase from 2017.
On the prevention front, in March we held the Oregon Suicide prevention conference in Clackamas. In April, we led a Tri-County Summit with Clackamas, Washington and Multnomah counties on opioid abuse prevention. In May, we hosted the first statewide conference addressing the ongoing opioid crisis bringing together national leaders to discuss solutions for prevention and recovery. In June, we helped convene the first ever Oregon Tribal Summit on Opioids and Other Drugs, a culturally centered conference addressing the substance abuse and opioid epidemic in tribal communities across the state.
In addition to everything else, over 700 supporters attended our Gala for Hope and Les Schwab golf tournament, helping us to raise both awareness and the vital funding for our staff and programs.
We know the hope we deliver is more vital than ever before. Just this month, the CDC reported that over 70,000 people died from drug overdose last year–the most ever–and the suicide rate rose to its highest rate in decades. This is a crisis of despair. We are here to meet this despair with hope, thanks to your help.
Thank you again to our volunteers, donors, partners and sponsors for all that you do for Lines for Life. I look forward to seeing you in 2019.
Very Truly Yours,
Dwight