Prevention Point Philadelphia was thrilled to be featured in this beautiful piece in The New York Times's The Athletic about living legend Jason Kelce, along with former PPP participant and MOUD patient, the unstoppable Kali Lamb.
"If you want to get to know Jason Kelce, get to know Philadelphia." We thank writer Brooks Kubena for getting to know Prevention Point; we're grateful to be part of the fabric of this passionate, vibrant city.
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Lamb hid her substance use for so long. Meeting others opened the door to sobriety, she says, “because I had to accept the fact that I was living with this before I could make a change with it.” Compassion became gravitational. When Lamb caught Hepatitis C, she received treatment from Prevention Point, a nonprofit organization that occupies an old church on Kensington Ave.
Prevention Point was one of two dozen charities that received portions of the $1.25 million raised from “A Philly Special Christmas,” the holiday album recorded in 2023 by Kelce, Mailata and Lane Johnson. Kelce, in his retirement speech, said learning former Eagles coach Andy Reid’s son, Garrett, had died from an accidental heroin overdose during training camp in 2012 was “the most intense moment I’ve ever shared with a group of men.” Kelce said “the outpouring of support and love for my friend and the Reid family at the funeral soon after… was truly remarkable.”
One day, Lamb suddenly couldn’t breathe. She had a friend call an ambulance. She spent a month in the hospital treating a kidney abscess, a tube attached to her chest draining pus and fluid from her lungs. Her father didn’t take her calls; her mother had died while Lamb was unhoused. She found out her certified recovery specialist had once lived on the streets, too. “Are you happy?” she asked him. I can’t tell you all my days are good, the specialist said. But it’s a totally different existence today. Lamb never returned to the stairwell.
“You need someone outside of yourself when you are at your lowest to tell you that you are worth it,” Lamb says. “And I can’t tell you enough how important that is. Like, having someone like Brad and people like Prevention Point. Because I feel that about myself now. I love myself. But there was a time, like, I didn’t care. Because when you’ve been living a life that hasn’t had success, to make this idea of success, you don’t even know what it looks like.”
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