Engaging with Isolation
All Our Hearts aims to awaken empathy for a stigmatized community — people by opioid-use disorder.
Just over one year ago, Madelyn Linsenmeir died as a result of opioid-use disorder. Maddie’s humanizing obituary, written by her sister Kate O’Neill and published by Seven Days in Burlington, Vermont, went viral within days. Kate’s honest reflection of Maddie’s life, inspired other people to share their own stories of loss and grief as a result of opioid-use disorder. Opioid-use disorder is an isolating experience, but because of Kate’s willingness to share such a fragile truth, other people impacted by opioid-use disorder felt comfortable to share their own stories, too.
In response to the viral obituary, Seven Days launched a year-long series in January of this year dedicated to tell the stories and solutions from the opioid epidemic in Vermont, Hooked. To address and serve the community that shared their own stories in the comments of Maddie’s story, I helped to launch a project in conjunction with Hooked called All Our Hearts. All Our Hearts (AOH) is an online memorial for people who have died as a result of opioid-use disorder. Each story published is produced in the words of the family member or friend that submitted it via this form.
Our hope is to awaken empathy and inspire action for the opioid-use disorder community. Since August, we’ve gathered more than 60 stories. In mid-October, our project caught the eye of Buzzfeed, and many of our stories were submitted after they published this article. During this course, I’ve developed several stories for the AOH website, and in an effort to advance the project, I’ve taken lead of community engagement/spreading awareness about AOH by planning two events that will take place in Burlington, VT between now and December 10.
For the first event (November 9), I’ve invited about 10–15 people who have submitted a story to AOH to help us to make clay stones. We expect about 10 attendees at this event this Saturday.
Why clay stones?
More than a decade ago, Sam Cohn, a young Vermonter, died suddenly and tragically. In an effort to heal, his family and friends gather once a year to make clay stones with Sam’s name and this website, which honors the life he lived. Sam’s family and friends take the stones and leave them in new towns, cities and countries for strangers to find and learn about Sam’s life. Sam’s dad, John Cohn, helped us to brainstorm how we can use the idea for All Our Hearts.
In preparation for Saturday, our team will purchase four bags of clay, which will produce ~100 stones each. We will measure 110 grams of clay for each individual stone using a kitchen scale. Attendees will help us to mold each stone by hand into the shape of a heart. With the help of John and Pike Porter, we have a stamp which reads “allourhearts.com” in a circle. Each stone will be molded with this stamp on once side.


The other side the stone will be customized by the person crafting it — attendees will have the opportunity to imprint their loves one’s name or initials on a stone. To do this, we will use ballpoint pens. We hope that working with the clay, honoring their loved ones, will be a therapeutic experience for the attendees.
The second event will take Place Sunday, December 8. This event will be open to the public and also take place in Burlington, VT. This event is specifically for AOH. We will distribute the stones, and explain our hopes for spreading awareness about the project through community participation by leaving the stones in new places for strangers to find. Marketing for this public event will include promotion Seven Days’ weekly paper, online advertisements, and flyers in the Burlington area.
Value Proposition & How It Works
Value Proposition: All Our Hearts is a memorial project for people who have died as a result of opioid-use disorder that aims to awaken empathy in society and humanize the experience of the disease, which can, in turn, bring a human face to data and offer healing for those who submit the stories.
How it works: After a submission is received via the initial form, we conduct a follow-up interview to develop each individual story in the words of the person who provided it. Sharing humanizing stories from a historically isolated community encourages other people, similarly affected by opioid-use disorder, to share their own experience.
Opioid-Use Disorder Death Toll
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 70,000 people in the United States died by drug overdose in 2017–68 percent of those deaths were opioid-related. However, it’s important to note that death as a result of opioid-use disorder does NOT mean death by overdose exclusively. For example, a stroke inducing heart arrhythmia disease, atrial fibrillation, can develop from extensive drug use.
What I learned from helping to develop a product that serves people affected by opioid-use disorder…
Everything takes (so much) time. Over the course of this project I learned to predict the amount of time I thought I’d need to reach a goal, and then extend it by about two-four weeks. Seven Days does not publish anything without thorough consideration, and numerous rounds of editing. After we developed the initial form for AOH for three weeks, it took about three more weeks to receive edits, adjust the language on the form, and then be able to user-test. After about two weeks of user-testing, we were able to gather our first few stories — we spent a couple weeks waiting to receive the initial submissions from people we sought out, then we conducted follow-up interviews and thoughtfully produced each story. The form launched publicly on August 21 with the few stories we had as examples, about three months from the date we began developing the project.
Being a leader is tough. I was allowed the opportunity to plan the community engagement aspect of this project. I didn’t realize how many tiny details it takes to make an intimate, two hour event happen. From coordinating everyone involved, to knowing you’ve identified all the proper materials for the event and a space for it to take place — it’s a lot to keep track of and a huge responsibility.
This course has taught me the importance of honoring that responsibility, and justifying the reason for every decision that helps to shape and develop new ideas, and services.
