April Babcock (left) and Virginia Krieger in February 2024.Photo:Shuran Huang
Shuran Huang
April Babcock is sitting in a cramped upstairs room in her Maryland home filled with posters and banners that are covered with the faces of those who havedied from fentanyl.
“This is my war room,” Babcock, 51, tells PEOPLE. It’s where she and her advocacy organizationLost Voices of Fentanylwage a fight against a crisis thatkilled more than 112,000people in 2023 alone.
But just over five years ago, it was the bedroom of her son, Austen, before she lost him to the deadly drug.
April Babcock’s son, Austen, who died in 2019.April Babcock
April Babcock
Austen had been struggling with addiction but he didn’t know that the cocaine he bought and ingested one night in January 2019 contained fentanyl. He died at the age of 25.
In the months that followed, Babcock reached out to other families going through similar losses and began to channel her pain and anger into organizing a protest in D.C.
One of the moms she grew closest to wasVirginia Krieger, whose daughterTiffany Robertson, a formerAmerican Idolsemi-finalist, died in 2015 after a friend gave her a pill she thought was Percocet to help with back pain. The pill contained fentanyl, and Tiffany died at the age of 26, leaving behind two children.
“It was like a magnet, we got pulled together,” says Krieger, 59. “She’s my sister in grief.”
Virginia Krieger’s daughter Tiffany Robertson.Virginia Krieger
Virginia Krieger
Together the two mothers, who are among PEOPLE’s 2024Women Changing the World, have rallied more than 1,800 loved ones during three annual protests at the nation’s capital (their next rally will take place July 13) and are working to change laws to stop fentanyl from taking more lives.
At each of their events, they hang banners with photos of those lost. “It’s to put a face to it,” Krieger says. “They’re not just numbers. These are children, these are infants, these are mothers, fathers, doctors, lawyers, friends, daughters, sons. This is our future and our future’s dying. People have become so immune to it and we’re trying to wake them up.”
Since Babcock launched the non-profit, Lost Voices of Fentanyl has grown to 32,000 Facebook members. But the number is nothing to be proud of, says Krieger: “When we grow, it means more loss, more suffering, more families and children going through this.”
For more inspiring stories from PEOPLE’s Women Changing the World honorees, pick up the March 11 issue, on newsstands Friday.
Lost Voices of Fentanyl moms Virginia Krieger (left) and April Babcock.Virginia Krieger
In her daughter’s case, she was given a pill from a friend that was made to look like Percocet. “By itself that would not have harmed her, but it killed her,” Krieger says. “If that’s not a poisoning, I don’t know what is. Let’s not blame the victims. Whether or not they consumed it doesn’t mean that they overdosed.”
Both mothers say their fight can seem impossible, but, says Babcock, “people continue to die. So we can’t stop.”
“When we see the death toll continuing to go up, we start to feel powerless,” says Krieger. “But then we remember we’re doing it for the living. We can’t bring back our children, but we can prevent it from happening to somebody else. That keeps us moving.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
source: people.com
