The Cayce Fire Department’s newest initiative makes drug awareness more approachable. 

On March 16, the Cayce Fire Department will host its first Save a Life Day with Lindsay McDade, the department’s first community risk reduction manager, taking charge in planning the day centered around drug awareness. 

“What you're seeing is what's indicative of our team. They are proactive about taking care of our city,” Mayor Elise Partin said. “There’s work that they're doing to make sure that people are aware of how to be safe and how to save a life and how to take care of each other in the event of an emergency. 

“They're not just doing that through education, they're doing it in fun, family-friendly, fun ways.” 

McDade said that the topic of drug addiction can be controversial and sensitive for people, adding that her goal for this event is to create a way to talk about it in a more approachable way.  

This position is new to the department, having been created after the city received funding from the South Carolina Opioid Recovery Fund (SCORF) after a large-scale opioid settlement with opioid manufacturers in the state. 

Cayce, Irmo, Lexington, West Columbia and Lexington County were among the 89 recipients of SCORF funds. 

The risk reduction manager started planning the Save a Life event about five months ago, reaching out to other organizations who have held events that were centered around educating citizens about drugs. 

What she found out was that a majority of those events that didn’t receive the success they wanted from the events were branded as a drug awareness day. 

“Let’s try to reach everyone, even if you've never been impacted by substance use disorder, or if you want to learn something new about it, like what's a family fun way to do that,” McDade said. “That's kind of how this all got born.” 

The day itself is not solely focused on drug awareness. It is also intended to bring awareness to domestic violence and human trafficking, McDade told The Chronicle.  

“If you just want your kids to come and have a good time, then you can do that, or if you want to connect with our vendors, like they're there in this nice, family friendly setting, you can have those hard conversations if that's what's needed,” she said. “It's just the umbrella that substance use disorder addiction affects everyone from the kids to the older people in the home like it's not just limited to the person struggling. 

“We just want to show that we care and we're just trying to meet people where they're at and also have a really good day of learning and giving back to the community.” 

There will be bouncy houses, clothes closets, an area to donate food baskets, a community library, Cayce fire fighters teaching CPR and first aid among other booths and activities. 

The Courage Center, one of the event partners that aids in addiction recovery, will be on site with narcan and teaching visitors how to use it.  Other organizations include The Chef’s Store, which donated burgers and buns for the event, and Aspire Bakeries is donating muffins and cookies. 

This isn’t the first time the fire department has worked alongside the Courage Center. McDade told The Chronicle that the department and center looked over data and noticed that a motel in the area was having a high rate of overdoses. In response, the two agencies worked with the hotel to place narcan there and a card to show people how to use it. 

Steved Bullard, Cayce fire chief, said that the reason one department got involved in the fight against drug addiction was the amount of overdoses the department was responding to. 

“It was becoming a huge problem and we got word that we would apply for our grant through the opioid recovery fund to kind of help abate the issue or eliminate the risk or curb the risk,” he said. “So we just went after that, and we got it.”