LOYAL. LOCAL. COMPLETE.
Rotary International is no stranger to taking on big, health-related challenges. The group first tackled getting Polio vaccines into the arms of people around the world, specifically in underserved areas, in the 1970s. Now, after decades of commitment and vigorous determination, the mission is ending. June 2025 is officially earmarked as the end of Polio as the group’s official mission statement.
The hard work is not ending for the international club and its local chapters, instead, the mission is shifting gears to more relevant crises according to Paris Rotary President Heather Williams.
“The group’s focus is shifting to helping those suffering from opioid addiction,” she said.
On Monday, Aug. 5 the Paris Ill. Rotary Group invited various organizations across the county to its weekly meeting to hear from Larry Kenemore, a spokesperson for the SMART initiative.
Kenemore has multiple years of experience as a paramedic and OSHA safety instructor. Throughout his career, Kenemore says he specifically remembers a single shift where he helped resuscitate the same person suffering from an overdose three times in 24 hours.
Now Kenemore is the North America Task Force Leader for Rotary Action Group Addiction Prevention (RAG AP) and the representative to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime Special Consultative Status for Rotary.
To open his presentation, Kenemore explained Rotary International is taking on the issue of drug addiction because he and many of his associates believe “not enough is being done.”
“There are several groups and programs out there that have come up with ideas and tried hard to fix things, but nothing has worked,” Kenemore said. “There are still people dying and there are still people getting addicted. So far, nothing has worked and if Rotary was able to irradicate Polio, imagine the difference we could make with the illness that is addiction… because it is that, it is an illness.”
According to Kenemore, two million people around the world died from overdoses in the past 20 years and the Illinois Department of Public Health shows there were 3,261 overdose deaths in the state in 2022, an eight percent increase from the year before.
Project SMART is an acronym billed as “the first and only multi-disciplinary project geared to eradicate addiction” per Rotary’s website. The Project SMART acronym encompasses School Education, Medicine and Drug Disposal, Awareness, Naloxone Training (opioid overdose antidote), Recovery and Treatment.
The first bullet point of SMART is achieved through schools and classroom education.
Kenemore says drug abuse resistance education programs like D.A.R.E. have failed, because “It pitched the same message to all students, regardless of their varying ages.”
Rotary’s solution is an age-based education on drug addiction, one unlike any other option currently available. Research and reviews compiled by the group say children learn best through lessons tailored to their specific grade-level comprehension.
“It will take 20 years to graduate the next generation, but it’s crucial,” Kenemore said. “Because teens are the fastest-growing demographic in the addiction pipeline.” He believes getting comprehensive and reccurring education into schools is a critical step to slowing the spread of addiction as a disease.
The next two prongs of the program, Awareness and Medicine and Drug Disposal, involve supplying schools, police stations and other spaces with proper medicine disposal boxes; training in cleaning procedures for surfaces contaminated with fentanyl; and an adequate amount of Naloxone and Kloxxado, the nasal sprays that reverse overdoses.
Edgar County has seen an increase in the distribution of Naloxone locally with free nasal sprays from Edgar County ROSC readily available to all members of the community at a half-dozen locations including the Horizon Health Emergency Room, R & J Stores and J’s Laundry Mat. Still, Rotary is hoping to increase the distribution of the life-saving spray and to increase education available to the general public on how to use the spray.
The last major elements, Recovery and Treatment, involve researching and circulating the success rates of local rehabilitation centers, which Kenemore called expensive and predatory. Kenemore and Rotary International hope to bolster outpatient-based medicine-assisted treatment. The spokesperson called Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) more accessible and effective.
MAT is an evidence-based treatment that, when combined with counseling and other therapeutic techniques, provides a whole-patient approach to recovery.
During his presentation of the new project, Kenemore was passionate about getting local individuals involved in their community and creating “boots on the ground.”
“I don’t live here in your community, I cannot make all of this happen,” he said. “Rotary is here to provide all of this to you for free, I am not here to ask you for money. I am here just to ask you to get involved.”
Of the many aspects of Project SMART, the local Paris Rotary group is highlighting the “S”, School Programming and Learning. Mike Step, secretary for the local Rotary says the group’s primary goal in joining Project SMART is to get more education into local schools.
“It may take a long time, maybe up to 20 years,” he said. “But we need to educate our children and I know that we (Rotary) are hopeful that we can work with the school districts and educators to see it happen.”
In order for the Paris Rotary Club to access the resources Project SMART offers, it needs to create a SMART Committee, a group of at least five people who could chair the S, M, A, R and T of the initiative.
Information on the chair positions and Rotary membership can be found on the “Paris Illinois Rotary” page on Facebook, or by attending the group’s weekly meeting at noon on Monday afternoons in the basement of The First Christian Church in Paris.