The co-founders were members of Teach Initiative, a near-peer, college student-led alternative to drug education programs like DARE. However, while working together on harm reduction-based approaches to adolescent substance use curricula, we realized there was also a great need to address related issues on our campus.
CHRU started in response to students overdosing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We aimed to expand naloxone access and substance use education on our campus, hoping to prevent further tragedies. Through connecting with the nonprofit naloxone vendor, Rememdy Alliance/For the People, we were able to do just that.
Today, we are the single largest distributor to any singular college campus. Looking to the future, we are working on expanding our services even further.
Riley Sullivan co-founded CHRU in the spring of 2023 with Caroline Clodfelter, Callan Baruch, and Kathleen Ready and currently serves as its executive director. He is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying sociology, and is interested in the intersection of health, ideology, and social movements. In the future, Riley plans to pursue a Master’s of Public Health. He is passionate about making healthcare more accessible and addressing barriers to care.
Caroline Clodfelter is the former director and substance use chair of CHRU’s sister organization, the TEACH Initiative, which provides mental health and substance use education to high school students in North Carolina. She is a senior at UNC Chapel Hill majoring in psychology with minors in neuroscience and medical anthropology. She is on the pre-medical track, hoping to practice psychiatry with a particular interest in treating substance use disorders. Through work in a campus research lab, she studies the neurological effects of opioid withdrawal and is currently assisting in preliminary studies of xylazine. Caroline volunteers as a counselor at Crisis Text Line and serves on the board of other youth mentorship programs in the surrounding community. Through these experiences, she values meeting people where they are with open ears, and harm reduction efforts like CHRU’s are often the best way to begin that support.
Kathleen Ready is a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill majoring in biochemistry and interested in pursuing medicine. She also serves as the TEACH Initiative's substance use chair. Kathleen is very interested in reducing the stigma that inhibits people from acknowledging the realities of substance use and therefore prevents the population from properly acting in response to it. Kathleen wants to be on the frontline of the efforts to educate the student population and surrounding communities on proper harm reduction techniques and aid in the distribution of life-saving resources. She is very excited to be a part of this organization and hopes to improve the fight against the overdose epidemic.
Callan is a Junior at UNC majoring in Physics and Mathematics, with a minor in French. Callan is the executive director of TEACH - CHRU’s sister organization - as well as the Ethics Chair of the UNC Undergraduate Student Government and a member of the National Society for Physics Students. Callan is a licensed tennis coach as well as an undergraduate researcher at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory. Callan has witnessed in close friends and family the dangers surrounding substance use, and through CHRU hopes to be able to meet people where they are and ensure that they are as safe as possible in whatever situation they find themselves in.
Bella Grumet is a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill studying neuroscience. After witnessing an opioid overdose reversal during her EMT training, Bella became motivated to spread awareness about harm reduction and Naloxone. She is excited to get involved in direct community outreach implementing creative strategies to boost engagement on campus and throughout the community. In addition to working with the CHRU, Bella is a research assistant in the Neuroendocrinology of Reproductive Mood Disorders lab, member of Zeta Tau Alpha, and a dedicated volunteer at the Orange Country Rape Crisis Center.