A group of nursing students from Butler County Community College started a push earlier this summer to get the word out about addiction services for those struggling with opioid dependency.

The students, 15 in all, are members of the Nursing Club at Butler County Community College.

The club's first move was to make their presence felt at the Big Butler Fair, where 15 nursing students helped staff an information table from June 30 through July 5. The students, who collectively volunteered more than 65 hours of their time, passed out materials from Foundations Medical Services, the Grapevine Center's Certified Peer Specialist Service, Seeds of Hope, North Main Street Church of God and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The idea, said Levi Pintirsch — a Jefferson Township resident and incoming junior at BC3 — was to make more information on treatment services available for not only addicts, but their friends and family members. The focus wasn't just opioids, Pintirsch added, but on other substances as well.

And the motivation was personal for many club officers and members.

“It does hit close to home,” he said. “I do have family members that struggle with addiction. But I think it hits close to home for a lot of people. A lot of people struggle with addiction. A lot of people don't know where to go to seek help.”

Both Pintirsch and Alyssa Black, another rising junior at the college, said they weren't surprised that the table got few visitors during their week at the fair. Most that did stop by, Black said, simply picked up some of the informational pamphlets the group was offering and walked away.

“It's a tough subject to bring up to people,” Black said.

It was only after students had put in the work that they started hearing about results — and the praise that many treatment services were giving them for their efforts.

Melissa Griffie, the club's adviser and a registered nurse who in January became a full-time instructor at BC3, said groups began reaching out to her later in July.

The moment she's most proud of is when a Butler-based treatment facility called to tell her that they had received two new clients who said they found their way into treatment as a result of the club's information sharing.

“If we helped even just one person in that whole week, it was worth it,” Griffie said. “These students who are just entering their nursing education, they're thinking like nurses already. And I'm just really proud of them.”

She said that since the club's effort began, groups have begun to reach out in hopes of establishing working relationships with the college, and BC3 officials have themselves reached out to the club, asking if they would make information sharing a yearlong theme for the club's activities.

For students' part, they're more than happy to continue the push to get more information out about treatment services. Griffie said the club plans to host an informational table later in August, at a community day in Chicora Park that will be based around drug awareness.

“When we started this it was an isolated thing,” Griffie said. “And now it seems like there is a call for a collaborative effort.”

As their effort grows and continues to take shape, Griffie and the students say they want to broaden their efforts even further. Pintirsch hopes the club can find ways to interact more directly with the public as they distribute the information.

“It's hard to be interactive because people don't necessarily want to partake,” he said. “But I think we as a nursing program need to be a little more outspoken about what we're trying to achieve.

“I think it needs to be a little more aggressive to get people to talk about the issue.”

For Griffie, who as a nurse worked with babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome — meaning they were born addicted to illegal drugs or other substances — the matter hits close to home as well.

After spending much of her time in nursing trying to teach mothers how to care for babies who are experiencing drug withdrawal, she said the problem is more widespread and complex than many people realize.

“The problem is so big that, if you do nothing, you're automatically contributing to the problem, because it's everywhere now,” she said.

“I think there is a call from the community, and that's what we try to teach the students: you have to heed the call from your community and your public. And this is one of them.”