Wind Beneath Our Wings Video 

Have you ever heard of an Angel Day? If not, consider yourself fortunate because it’s a term that parents use when they refer to the day that their child died. Today, marks the day that children of two dear friends of SafeLaunch lost their lives from substance use disorder, and it’s a day when our friends feel their loss deeply. Today, we invite you to remember Kirsten and Andy with us. They are loved and they are missed. 

It is for the millions of young people like Kirsten and Andy that we created the flying memorial, The Wind Beneath Our Wings. It is for the 82,000 young Americans who lost their lives to overdose alone in 2020. It is for the parents, grandparents, friends, brothers and sisters left behind. And most importantly, it is for the children we hope to save from ever developing a drug dependency.

When we invite young children to paint “DJ the Prevention Plane” at our Flights Above Addiction events, they do so under the wings adorned with over 200 names of Americans lost to addiction. Having joyful children with multicolored brushes painting their dreams on the plane is a poignant experience for us because we know that while drug dependency can happen to anyone, it roots in people under the age of 18 in nine out ten cases. 

And when we talk with young families attending airport events across this country, we are ensuring that parents understand that the use of alcohol or drugs of any kind prior to age 21 isn’t a rite of passage or simply an experiment, it’s a game of chance. We encourage the youth to make One Choice: not to use drugs or alcohol before age 21 because the risk to their health is real. (NIH.gov)

In memory of all of our “Wing Kids”, we invite you to join the SafeLaunch Parent Alliance.

If you have lost a child to substance use disorder, please email [email protected] for a private link to join us.