Amara Rose Foundation, Inc.

10/28/2025

Today we celebrate National First Responders Day, and we join people from all over the nation to recognize and celebrate all of the people who keep us healthy, alive and safe.
We know their job is not easy. We don’t know how they do it and are thankful they keep committed to all of us. They have an often-thankless, taken-for-granted job and deserve all of our thanks today and every day. Go and hug a First Responder today!
Photo courtesy of some of our foundation’s town’s heroes, Westby EMS. 💪💪💪

10/27/2025

Our first Narcan training open house is this Thursday between 3:00-7:00 PM in C**n Valley. Come anytime that works best for you (walk-in). Veronica “Peach” Hoiland is a state-certified trainer and on our board of directors.
Free Narcan, free refreshments.
Next week on November 6 we will either be in Stoddard or Viroqua for the next training open house. We will post tomorrow about that location and time.

10/26/2025

This past week, we did a post that needs to be updated. The woman did not pass away, and we are SO thankful. Our two reliable sources just learned that they were misinformed.
The point of the post was to make everyone aware of the importance of having Narcan with you wherever you go. If you ever come across someone in a public bathroom or anywhere else, will you be prepared?
The post raised a tremendous amount of awareness, and we are sending out between 50-60 boxes of Narcan to the people who responded. We are also moving forward with in-person training starting next week. We will post the dates, times and locations tomorrow.
Thank you for all of your care, your shares and your willingness to rise up and carry Narcan. We are grateful for all of you. This is ALL done in honor of Amara, Karl, and all the rest who did not survive.

10/25/2025

10/23/2025

Drug Take Back Day is this Saturday, October 25th. According to the Wisconsin DHS website, in Vernon County it’s at the Ontario Police Department and Vernon Memorial. Please see https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/opioids/drug-take-back-day.htm for more information and more drop-off sites in other counties.

10/22/2025

A friend of Heidi’s, another Angel Mom, sent this to us yesterday. Her grief is still raw since she just lost her son a year ago. Please take time out of your busy day to pray for the ones who are grieving. Their loved ones are on their minds ALL of the time. And we don’t reach out for sympathy or attention…it’s just once you live through this loss, you will never heal, and sometimes we just need to talk about them with people just to keep going.

10/21/2025

Heidi saved every text message from Mari from the last few months of her life. She got the very last one on September 3rd, 2021. After that, we had no idea where Mari was. It’s a story that countless families have in common…where are they? Are they safe? It hurts that they don’t answer or seem to want anything to do with me/us. It really does. We worry ourselves sick. We cry. We don’t know what to do. We hate you, addiction.

Here, I was sending her YouTube worship music videos because she loved them and they really touched her and encouraged her. We ended up playing one of these songs at her funeral. Check out As You Find Me (Live) by Hillsong UNITED.

We hate this time of year because it marks the countdown of days to her death anniversary. Every parent goes through this. Fentanyl took her life. We’ll never forget the darkness and the pain of loss we all went through. But it turned us into warriors.

10/18/2025

Nice!

Students at Edina High School will be among the first in Minnesota entrusted with carrying and administering naloxone, a drug used to reverse opioid overdoses.

10/17/2025

We hope today finds you all doing well! Enjoy your weekend! Today we’ll post the second speech given at our Remembrance Walk. Julie Tully spoke to the crowd:

"Welcome to everyone that is here tonight, from the
bottom of my heart I appreciate you being here. Thank
you to all our sponsors. This event is very near and
dear to my heart. My son Karl passed away from an
accidental overdose in 2017. He was only 26 years old
and had his whole life ahead of him.

Deaths due to fentanyl overdoses have declined after
peaking in 2022 and 2023, even though half of all illicit
drugs tested that were seized had a potentially lethal
amount of fentanyl in them. So why the decline?

Naloxone is readily available and being widely
distributed. You no longer need a prescription for
this life-saving tool and it is easy to use.

Advances in treatments including medically aided
treatments, telehealth options for those that are
remote or cannot travel. There are a variety of treatment
options. One type of treatment does not work for
everyone.

A powerful tool is education. This is critical if not
central to the Amara Rose Foundation.

This is all good news, but you may be asking yourself
how I can help, because we still have a long way to go.

Talking about overdose, addiction, treatment,
treatment options, recovery...these can spread the
hope to a suffering addict or their families.

Support those in recovery. Learn about available
resources. Be an example. Host a chemical-free
gathering or attend a gathering.

Support agencies, groups, foundations and
individuals that make it their mission to fight this
epidemic. Coming together on a night such as
tonight is an excellent example of ways to help.

Challenge those that speak with a stigma. Look
beyond the addict or their struggle. Show
compassion! Put yourself in their shoes!

We are not alone in this fight and together we are
stronger. As I close here I have hope! I have hope! I
have hope that we are learning, growing as a
community and creating a safe space to talk about
substance use disorder and to support those in
recovery. Our goal is creating a rewarding future of
health and happiness, and aren’t we all worth it? I think
that is what we all want in life!"

10/16/2025

We’ve been quiet on FB for a bit, but we’ve been busy. First, on Saturday, October 11th, we treated some of our local volunteers from 2025 to a Volunteer Appreciation Lunch at the Westby United Methodist Church. We all enjoyed food from Pizza Ranch and Dave’s Pizza, along with a beautiful and delicious cake from Cakes by Kolbo. See anyone you recognize? We want to thank our wonderful, hardworking volunteers for all they do and the church for opening up their dining room to us for this luncheon!

Yesterday, Heidi presented to the senior class at Westby High School, alongside Deputy Roesler from the Vernon County Sheriff’s Office and Sgt. Shea Bjerkos from the Westby Police Dpt. Heidi talked about Amara’s journey, drugs, fentanyl, addiction and stigma. The class was wonderfully attentive. What a great group of young adults!

Members of our foundation will continue to present with Deputy Roesler to the senior classes of all Vernon County high schools in the months to come.

If your child attends a school outside of Vernon County, please contact our foundation for a presentation.

10/15/2025

Hundreds. Children. Every year.