With your help in 2023, we orchestrated several high-profile events and embarked on some exciting new initiatives. To celebrate, we’d love to share a brief recap of what we accomplished along with a BIG thank you to some key partners and people who made it all possible – thank you!
Awareness Events
SILCO fentanyl awareness day - Frisco, Colorado
XFoundation is now an integral member of SCOPE (Summit County Overdose Prevention Education), a group of local officials (nurses, police, firefighters, and more) in the Summit County area focused on reducing the impact of opioids in the surrounding regions.
SILCO fentanyl awareness day was our inaugural event for the year, where XFoundation presented Xavier’s fentanyl poisoning story. At the event, we had the opportunity to meet bereaved parents as a result of opioids, who brought pictures of their lost children, fighting the stigma of their passing.
George presenting at SILCO fentanyl awareness day
Summit County High School talk (SCOPE) - Frisco, Colorado
We shared Xavier’s story at Summit County High School in two sessions along with registered nurses, Amy and Annie, from Summit County Healthcare. Together we distributed over 300 doses of Naran to students who approached us after the assembly and willingly took them. In fact, one student from the crowd came on the stage to hug us for our speech. It was evident that fentanyl poisoning had affected their lives. Summit County has the most progressive harm reduction mentality we have seen in Colorado.
Thank you to our SCOPE team; we’re excited to continue our partnership in 2024 and bring our lessons learned to the front range. Please reply if you know anyone who can help us with this initiative!
Audience at George's Summit County High School talk
TEDxBreckenridge - Breckenridge, Colorado
Out of 200+ applications for speaking slots at TEDxBreckenridge INSTINCT, George Gerchow’s talk on Poisoning vs Overdose was selected to be one of the 9 talks for 2023. The process was beautiful and difficult, no slides, no teleprompter, no clock.
To our surprise, XFoundation was also selected to have a booth at the event’s first ever “Innovation Alley.” We flooded the Breckenridge RiverWalk with XFoundation tote bags filled with Narcan, fentanyl testing strips, free t-shirts and stories of poisoning victims. We had a lot of help from family and friends to pull this off, and are still seeing extreme exposure as a result of the event. Thank you all for your support!
George on the TEDx stage
Xavier's friends and XFoundation at the Innovation Alley booth
Summit County High School Parent’s Night (SCOPE) - Frisco, Colorado
Our very own, Arin Seidlitz, spoke with parents about the dangers of fentanyl poisoning and shared her story on what could have been a similar fate to Xavier’s had fentanyl been so prevalent.
Thank you for always diving both feet in, Arin. You’re a rockstar!
CU Boulder Event - Boulder, Colorado
One of Xavier’s closest friends, Aiden Truesdell, approached the XFoundation to conduct a school project for his Business class at CU Boulder. The assignment was to select a company, any company, and analyze their process. Understand their pain points and execute a strategic business plan to increase followers and operational efficiency. Within one week, XFoundation doubled its Instagram follower count with students from one of our leading local colleges. During the event, Aiden and his classmates handed out Narcan, t-shirts and other XFoundation SWAG to raise awareness of fentanyl poisoning.
We are so thankful for your grit and dedication to carrying on Xavier’s legacy, Aiden. Thank you.
CU Boulder students running their own XFoundation booth
SoulCycle - Denver, Colorado
Lynne Doherty and Gioia Ferretti hosted our second annual #Ride4X event. This beautiful celebration of life is full of energy and love. Our instructor was electrifying and reminded us to accept and conquer challenges because we can and are alive. We handed out XFoundation swag bags and enjoyed time with friends at the event.
Thank you to all who participated in this event, and special thanks to Lynne and Gioia for their unwavering support of our foundation.
Sumo X
Meta Yoga - Frisco, Colorado
#Stretch4X was beautifully organic. Our close friends at Meta Yoga wanted to host a XFoundation event in honor of their friend’s son, Xavier. The community experience was incredible. It was a challenging and emotional class guided by our friend Kelly Klus. Kelly’s heartfelt intention for this class was throat and heart chakras. During the class, Kelly played many of Xavier’s favorite songs and a single by Kimo titled X.G., a collaboration of Xavier (on drums) and Matt Green (on guitar). At #Stretch4X, we also handed out dozens of fentanyl testing strips and Narcan.
Thank you for a beautiful class, Kelly.
Meta yogis stretching for X
CorePower Yoga(Sweat for X) - Colorado Springs, Colorado
#Sweat4X was a good mix of folks from all walks of life. Many of Xavier’s friends and his beautiful mother, Christine, attended. The class was led by two instructors, Julia Bo and Julia Archer, and designed to have many X’s poses woven throughout the practice.
Thank you for the opportunity to sweat for our X, Julia & Julia.
Friends and family at sweat for X at the Nevada CorePower location
Fundraising Events
10k match - Virtual
Our long-time friend, Craig Morrill, and his family wanted to recreate our successful 2021 campaign and graciously donated $10k to our foundation to raise awareness on fentanyl poisoning. With your help, we matched Criag’s donation in just one month!
With this money, we are working with a local Colorado Springs middle school, where 90% of students are on free and reduced lunch, to waive physical and athletic fees and, eventually, counseling groups to reduce the risk of experimenting with street scripts.
Thank you to Craig, his family, and all of you for helping us make an impact in our community. We will keep you posted on how this initiative develops!
Additional Initiatives
Denver Dynasty - Denver, Colorado
Signing Day: XFoundation was honored to be a part of the Denver Dynasty’s signing day. At the event, we got to see our donations at work. Women, moms, sisters and aunties were making their dreams come true in front of us. Many of the players shared their personal stories on how fentanyl has impacted their lives and thanked us for helping spread awareness of the issue.
Backpack drive: We partnered with Tennille Thomas, founder of the Annual Underwear Affair, a non-profit raising awareness on underwear insecurity in local communities, to provide backpacks to elementary school students in need. We shared a note with students informing them of the surface level threats posed by fentanyl and why they should always eat candy from a sealed wrapper and take medicine from a trusted adult.
Thank you for letting us participate in this journey, Coach B., Coach Rick, Tennille, and Denver Dynasty!
Legislature - Colorado Springs, Colorado
In 2023, we met with representatives Doug Lamborn, Joseph Neguse and Colorado Speaker of the House, Julie McCluskie. Each conversation focused on harm reduction techniques to combat fentanyl poisoning in Colorado Springs. We shared Xavier’s story at each meeting. The highlight was 20-year-old Matt Weis, another incredible friend of Xavier’s, who led one of these roundtables in Colorado Springs. See coverage here.
For more articles, videos and news, visit our website.
Our Team is growing!
XFoundation welcomed three key members in 2023: Dr. Brittany Speck, Aaron Vestal, and Montana Gottman. Stay tuned for some exciting updates from these all-stars!
Today, our mission is to raise as much awareness around fentanylpoisoning as possible within our local communities and beyond in hopes of saving families from the pain we still feel from the loss of our Xavier. That said, we know some of you have also suffered the impact of fentanyl poisoning.
The events outlined above were made possible because of you. To heal, learn, and influence change, it takes a community. Thank you for being a part of ours.
We welcome any feedback/suggestions walking into the new year. Please respond to this email with what you’d like to see from our organization moving forward. We are in this fight together.
