Max’s Mission in the Media
Every story shared helps others understand why our mission matters. Explore recent and past news coverage featuring Max’s Mission. Below is a collection of articles, interviews, and media coverage providing insights into our work in Southern Oregon, community impact, and the voices of those we serve.
10/7/25: The event, led by RCC’s Counseling Department in partnership with local nonprofit Max’s Mission, drew nearly a dozen participants from across the community.
9/25/25: This Saturday, the non-profit is hosting its 9th annual Overdose Awareness Day in Medford’s Hawthorne Park. Founder Julia Pinsky and coordinator Seraphina Pinsky joined Emily Storm on Sunrise this morning to tell us all about it.
11/7/24: NBC5 News is learning more about an overdose alert from Jackson County Public Health related to illicit opioids, specifically fentanyl.
1/15/24: An ambitious law set forth a more humane way to address addiction. Then came the backlash.
7/19/23: Three years ago, while the nation’s attention was on the 2020 presidential election, voters in Oregon took a dramatic step back from America’s long-running War on Drugs.
8/31/21: The White House marked Overdose Awareness Week with a proclamation from President Joe Biden. The move comes as recovery experts and law enforcement are alarmed about a rise in drug overdose and overdose deaths up and down the western United States.
1/20/19: The nonprofit group Max's Mission will give out test strips that can detect whether street drugs are laced with fentanyl -- the deadliest drug in America.
5/3/17: This is the story of an Ashland mother who’s turned her personal tragedy into community action to save lives.
10/4/25: Rogue Community College’s counseling department, in collaboration with Max’s Mission, will offer free community workshops on Naloxone, a life-saving medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
9/5/25: A community event aimed at honoring lives lost to overdose and raising awareness about the ongoing opioid crisis is set to take place tomorrow at Veterans Park in Klamath Falls.
5/16/24: If you think you don’t know anybody who takes opioids, have you asked? Those are the word of Julia Pinsky, an Oregon-based mom who lost her son to an opioid overdose.
12/4/23: Naloxone can be used to reverse an overdose from opioids such as fentanyl. While the drug is available over the counter at pharmacies, some advocates say that’s not enough.
4/22/22: Max’s Mission, a nonprofit organization committed to distributing amedication that reverses an opioid overdose, gave out approximately 350 naloxone kits in Jackson County for the month of March.
9/10/19: There are many ways to help with addiction, but Julia kept coming back to the importance of saving a life. “You can’t go to treatment if you’re dead,” she notes. Max’s Mission was officially founded soon after in November 2016.
1/4/19: In Oregon, specifically, law enforcement officials are combating a 91 percent increase in synthetic opioid deaths in the one-year span between 2016 and 2017.
9/29/2025: Dozens gathered at Hawthorne Park to remember and honor those who have lost their lives to addiction. The event was part of Max’s Mission’s ninth annual Overdose Awareness Day.
3/31/25: Last year, the state ended a trailblazing law decriminalizing possession. Drug users in some counties are now in and out of jail, without lawyers, struggling to get treatment.
3/24/24: On March 19, 2023, life changed forever for Catherine Wallner and Jeff Sentle. Around midday, an officer and a detective from the Ashland Police Department pulled up in front of their house to deliver impossible news.
10/18/23: Ashland schools work with Max’s Mission to provide Narcan (which administers naloxone, an opioid-overdose antidote) to staff and to families and kids.
2/1/22: Twice a month, Tayas Yawks hosts Max’s Mission, a Medford-based nonprofit organization that provides community members suffering from addiction with needle exchange services, Narcan kits, fentanyl testing strips and other resources free of charge.
1/22/19: Max’s Mission, a non-profit dedicated to opioid outreach by providing naloxone education and distribution, is now offering free fentanyl testing strips. Fentanyl is a fairly new drug to the United States, which is often laced into heroin and other illicit narcotic substances.
11/6/18: Wednesday’s training session is supported by the HIV Alliance and Max’s Mission, a local nonprofit that offers free naloxone and raises awareness of the danger of drug overdoses.