Women Like Me Stories & Business

Brenda-Lee Hunter: A Movement To Help Families In The Drug Crisis

• Julie Fairhurst • Episode 173

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A single Facebook memory changes the course of a mother’s life: a daughter in danger, a family holding its breath, and a community stepping in at the right moment. From that moment, we open a wider lens on the drug crisis—what it looks like inside a home, inside a hospital, and inside the hearts of people who refuse to give up. Our guest, Brenda Lee Hunter, founded The Legacy Mission to turn grief into purpose by collecting stories from families and individuals living through addiction, loss, and recovery. These aren’t headlines. They are maps that lead us toward humane policies and practical help.

We talk about adoption and prenatal exposure, and the hard truth that love alone sometimes isn’t enough without support and structure. We push back on stereotypes with a sobering reality: many who die have housing, jobs, and families who love them. Visibility has distorted the narrative, making the street the stage while countless private battles go unseen. 

Brenda Lee explains why writing heals the writer first and then educates the world. Stories keep the light on for those we’ve lost and make it harder for leaders to ignore evidence.

The conversation also tackles thorny questions about involuntary care for minors, brain injury from repeated overdoses, and what a truly humane response should offer. If current approaches were working, deaths would be falling. So we look at strategies that do work: housing-first models with wraparound services, long-term care options, trauma-informed schools, and prevention for children born to exposed mothers. We reflect on programs that succeeded, until politics got in the way, and why courage in policy-making is non-negotiable when lives are at stake.

If this crisis has touched you, your voice matters. The Legacy Mission invites you to share your story for an upcoming book at no cost, honoring those who are here and those we miss. 

Listen, share this conversation with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help more families find these resources. Your story might be the lifeline someone is waiting for.

WEBSITE:  https://thelegacymission.com/

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/4101376083451665

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Who Is Julie Fairhurst?

Speaker • Author • Business Strategist • Founder of Women Like Me

Julie Fairhurst is a force of nature disguised as a woman with a pen and a business brain built for impact. As the founder of the Women Like Me Book Program, she has opened the door for women around the world to share their truth, heal their past, and rise into their power. Since 2019, she has published more than 30 books and over 350 true-life stories — without charging a single writer a dime! Why? Because women’s stories deserve daylight, not gatekeeping.

With 34 years in sales, marketing, and successful business leadership, Julie knows how to turn storytelling into influence and influence into income.

Her mission is clear and unapologetic: break generational trauma one story at a time and help women elevate both emotionally and financially. She doesn’t just publish books, she builds brands, confidence, and possibility, giving women the tools to rewrite their futures, grow their businesses, and lift their families with them.


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SPEAKER_01:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Women Like Me Stories in Business. I'm your host, Julie Fairhurst. And today I have an amazing guest, and I can't wait to get into some really deep conversations with her. So today I have the honor of speaking with a woman whose story is woven with courage, compassion, and fierce commitment to change. Brenda Lee Hunter is the founder of The Legacy Mission, an initiative born from deep personal loss, profound love, and the determination to turn grief into purpose. She's been a foster parent, a mother walking beside addiction, recovery, and heartbreak. And now a voice for families impacted by the drug crisis. Brenda Lee, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it greatly.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, thank you for having me. And I'm blushing after all that.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's the truth, my dear. It's the truth. So let's start at the beginning. Um, can you tell me you've, you know, we I gave you that brief introduction, but you've done so much more than that little bit that I have that I told our audience. So I'm wondering, is there a moment that you now realize was pointing you towards uh the work that you're doing today?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, you know, I I did sort of practice a response to to that question. And then this morning I was on Facebook and I came across a post, uh a memory that I'd shared six years ago. And I want to share this with you because well, it says it all. Um the post started. I want to thank everyone who has reached out over the last few days after seeing some posts from my daughter on Friday. She made those posts because she was high on Molly. This was not the first time she'd used it. And now I have to accept that she is on the way to one of every parent's worst nightmares. She's refusing to come home. We've been told to make sure we have Narcan on hand if she does come back. None of this makes any sense. My funny, caring, beautiful daughter is spiraling. My heart is aching every moment of every day. I'm desperate to not become the parent who lost her child to drugs. Please take a moment to wish her home safe. Please share this as I believe that prayers and positive energy do make a difference. And then I was um lucky enough to be able to do an update. And it said, My daughter saw this and called me. Thank all of you, but especially those who reached out to her directly. It really made the difference. She is home safe. Baby steps.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Wow, that is so you're right. It's every parent's worst nightmare.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. So that was that wasn't even the the start of it. Um for me personally. Um, my daughter's adopted, I adopted her at birth, and she had been born prenatally exposed to um substances. Um and I knew that things were gonna be um challenging um in certain aspects with with that, but I also believed that love would be enough to to get us through. And I was wrong. Love isn't just all it takes, and that's what sort of that was the beginning of my journey. Wow. Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_01:

And how is she today?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, um, there have been many roller coaster rides, but now um I'll I'll tell you where she's at, and I'm not taking all the credit for this because it's been, you know, her hard work, but um she is doing extremely well. She has found um a career that she is bringing her um happiness and focus and all those good things we we hope for our children. Um, she's in a very long-term relationship, and um her and I, as she would say, have become best friends.

SPEAKER_01:

Aw, well, thank you. I'm so glad to hear that. And and uh, you know, positive thoughts. Positive thoughts, but that's wonderful. Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

But backing up to that, um sometimes like I don't even want to think that you know there's there's no um more heartache ahead on this on this journey, but I and I feel guilty because it's like survivor's guilt when I talk to other parents every day who haven't um had the outcomes that I'm I'm seeing right now, and um it it's um the feeling of that I knew I had what I needed to to help other people through these situations, and so that's what led um to the whole legacy mission, which well, why don't you tell us about the legacy mission?

SPEAKER_01:

So, what's that all about?

SPEAKER_00:

The legacy mission is um a place for people who have been affected by the drug crisis um basically to tell their stories. And by sharing those stories with the rest of society, the rest of society can begin to understand the the struggles we have and um help maybe the people who have lost loved ones to the drug crisis. Um the people who've lost their loved ones, they're often hiding truths behind shame, guilt, and stigmas attached to the crisis. And because of this, it's very difficult to deal with the grief that follows loss. So um there there is a um book coming out in the new year, and what I've done is I've collected stories from people who have walked that journey, and you you will find um in those stories, like we're we're um fed a whole ton of crap about what this crisis really is. And for instance, like some of the numbers of the people who are losing their fights with this crisis, uh, one of the numbers is 70% of them have a home, have a job, have families who love them, have friends, but they're still dying to this drug crisis. And we're led to believe that it's more the people who are homeless, who don't have a job, who have supposedly no people that care about them, um, that are at the you know top end of this crisis.

SPEAKER_01:

And well, they're the visible, they're the ones we can see.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. And that's why I'm doing this because nobody on this planet has like not one single person that cares for them. There's and and I found this um out over the last few months. Um, actually, it's a year ago, that my daughter's birth father was taken by fentanyl. And um a lot of people passed him in the streets every day thinking he had no one that cared, but we we cared, and it turns out the doctor that treated him for three years cared, and a lot of people cared, and he was a remarkable soul. So um part of the legacy mission is dedicated to to him.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh so you're writing so so people are contacting you then to write their personal stories about their loved ones, or or if they themselves uh were uh addicted, but maybe they've overcome, or maybe they're still in the throes of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, and so what is the what's the purpose of the stories?

SPEAKER_00:

Is it is it to um well there's two purposes. One for the writer, first and foremost, to help them begin to heal. That that is the main goal because um no matter what the outside world thinks of somebody who has gone through something like this, um, you know, you you have to wake up every morning and just keep on keeping on. And so this is a way for for that to help with the process. Secondly, it's to keep the lights alive of our loved ones who have um fallen victim to this crisis and showing they're real people with real life stories, and um they're not they're not making a choice like we often hear, they're not making a choice to live this lifestyle. There's reasons and they vary from person to person. It's it's all important, everybody's stories um matter.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. I think uh it's a beautiful, and and I think for um, you know, people who maybe who have lost their loved ones, they'll be able to read about the experiences of others. I mean, we all want to know that we're not alone. We feel like we're alone, yeah, but but we're not. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I think that's beautiful. Um, so what you what during your darkest moments, what's kept you going?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh hell, I don't know. Um you know, I how really this journey started was almost 30 years ago and I became a foster parent. And um it was just it's a calling for me that um I I need I enjoy helping, I I really get a good feeling knowing I'm helping to lighten someone else's load. I was born into a family that gave service to the community. I like I know no other way. This is just what I do. It's not easy, and um as it became more and more closer to home, um it it was very difficult. But I I have always found that writing has been such a good release. And I think for for the the um telling the stories part, that's where where that came from. You you have to do something, you can't just bottle it all up and yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, my next question is how do you protect your heart while doing work that keeps you so close to grief?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I don't I don't really know an answer to that. It's because sometimes it doesn't feel like I protected it very well and it gets you know exhausting um dealing with it. I just um if I sat back and used the excuse, and and I heard this a lot as a foster parent, oh I could never foster because it would be too hard to let them go.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

And my answer to that was well, when when you're going in, you're you're not doing it for yourself, you're doing it to help other people, and yes, it hurts. I but um there's just so much like all it takes is one positive experience to wipe away all the pain, and you just keep moving on through them and it's like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, for sure, absolutely. And and with your own, I think you know, listening to you and and um you know, with your own journaling, that helps, that would help. Yes. I know for me, because ideal I've had many people say, Well, oh my goodness, how do you listen to all those sad stories? And I'm like, Well, because I because they're helping people and there's they're not sad at the end of the stories, they might start out in the beginning sad, but for for what I'm up to. So if a mother right now is listening, what would you say to her, woman to woman, mother to mother, if she's dealing with this issue with her children?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, that's what I actually do almost every single day. Um, and it's not as much of what I say as I let them be heard. So I mean, I've had conversations, and this is just such a a big issue with everybody's story, is so different. And and but at the end of the day, um, you know, all a parent wants to do is is help their child through, or all uh any relative of a love, right? That's all they want to do is help their child through. Mother to mother, I have said we are never going to fix this crisis. That's just a fact of life. We can improve things, and I'll get to that later at the end. But um, so what we have to do is take care of our own hearts, our own selves while while we're going through and seek out other people who've walked the same journey so that you know you're not alone. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yes, yeah. So what do you hope the legacy mission becomes in the world? Like what where do you see it five years down the road?

SPEAKER_00:

I see me, okay. I'm I'm now I'm gonna say this sooner than the end. Okay. At the end of the day, we've talked about why I think it's important for people to write, why stories need to be heard, blah, blah, blah. Okay. It's time to let our politicians and other supposed change makers who created this crisis. It's time to let them know that they should be ashamed of their lack of humanity. The way we are dealing with this, and there's all sorts of little bits and pieces that um, and people have different opinions on um on how it should be handled. And it's a the only thing that we're gonna be able to do to even come close to starting to fix it is using a little bit of everything that has been proven to work. So in five years, I hope to have put um the upcoming book into the hands of those politicians and those change makers. I will I will be advocating for families um here in BC. And I just hope that the people I'm trying to get through to will start to listen because uh we just um the families I talk to, they don't feel heard at all. And it has to change so that kids stop dying, so that our 40-year-old children stop dying, so that you know there's there's no reason for it to be happening.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. What do you think of um uh oh what's the word? The involuntary yeah, what do you think of that?

SPEAKER_00:

I when right before I posted the post I read earlier, um, I had gone to the hospital because Lucy had been taken there. Oops, and I was not allowed to see my daughter who was in distress, she was 14 years old, but she told them she didn't want to see me. She was high, she was belligerent. Nope, I don't want to see my mom. And this was not our normal thing, right? If I had had the opportunity to get that type of service for her at 14 years old, you better bet your butt. I like I would have done anything to try and help her so that it didn't go on for more years of of heartache and of wondering when she was gonna die. So I personally, and not everyone will agree with me. Um if your child is not old enough to vote, you should be able to do something to help them when they get into this um disastrous, tragic drug crisis that's going on.

SPEAKER_01:

I would be yeah, I agree, and I think for me, I think that it's in every community, of course. We see it daily, just drive down the street. And so many of them, I don't believe, can make a conscious decision because they're so far gone. They're so drugged out, they they they they don't think properly. I think they need an opportunity to to get. their whatever I say head clear but um where they can't so that their heart so they can make that make that absolute decision as to what to do one of the reasons they um also like people say oh they're um they're so affected by the drug but what the research is showing is they are affected by um overdosing and then being brought back however long so however long they've gone without oxygen to their brain that's irreparable damage yes and it only takes whatever amount of minutes and then some of these people they're getting brought back once twice a day and so they can't make those decisions no and they need if that's why I talk about humanity if we were a humane society we would be giving these people a safe alternative to what they are living yeah and I I have a girlfriend that um that uh her sister has been on the streets of Vancouver for it's gotta be 20 years now and so she's on so my girlfriend is on the uh call list if she gets picked up and put into the hospital which she did a couple of years ago and so my girlfriend went went down to the hospital in downtown Vancouver to to see her and and the doctor came in and she was just gone the stuff she was saying that was just craziness coming out of her mouth and so my girlfriend said to the doctor like when does she come down off this and he said she doesn't yeah this this is this is her brain has a hole in it yes this draw these drugs and this this is it this is it so you know what yeah what do you do you just let them it it's so crazy because you know we're supposed to take care of our own that's what families do that's what friends do we're we're supposed to take care of our own i know um a woman whose 40 some odd year old daughter who was very successful blah blah blah blah blah and then she got involved in drugs and refused to allow her mother to see her while she was in the hospital and her mother wanted you know to to help and then what we turn around and do as a society is say well you parents aren't doing enough if if people parented better this wouldn't happen. No and yeah yeah I mean definitely definitely there's trauma that people have experienced and and that type of thing but uh but um you can't lay it all on the parents you've got kids coming from perfectly wonderful families that get caught up in it and it's um it's more than it's more than just coming from a dysfunctional family. Yeah there was um uh we're I live in Chilliwack and my son lived in uh a condo he owned a condo he sold it uh a few years ago but right in the heart actually right next door right next door to the shelter like oh yeah right next door and uh so everybody he had somebody died on his sidewalk uh he would get up in the morning and people were plugging things into his patio he was on the ground floor so all these things but the but what I wanted to tell you is that he actually befriended a younger person on the streets and after a few conversations with him he found out that he does have family but not here in British Columbia and he actually got the number called this young fellow's mother bought him a bus ticket and got him on the bus and I mean hopefully life has gone better for him since he got back home but you know we walked past them we we you know I mean there's some there's some that he was you know nervous about that he wouldn't but this young fellow who was just this younger kid and you know they just started talking everybody has a mom and a dad or had a mom and a dad and a family and yeah there's someone and and you know hopefully that would hopefully that little bit is enough that this young fellow is going to be able to change his life and you know I don't know what his background was but um one of the other very large issues here is um the the amount of children being born addicted and that has increased um just so uh incredibly much over the last 20 years so we we don't think about how does that affect like the rest of society well first they're some of them are born into foster care and then you have to find trained foster parents who know how to um help with the withdrawal and and on and on and that costs a lot of money and then um then when they hit school there's like learning disabilities and whatnot and that's if they're lucky enough not to have some substantial medical issues because of being born to the drugs or with the drugs in their system.

SPEAKER_00:

But um and unlike children who are born with other like more obvious um disabilities or health issues where they can get treatments we do not acknowledge those educational emotional and health needs of children who are born um exposed prenatally they we just if once you get through the withdrawal you're supposed to you know move along and and that's it and unless you have somebody capable of advocating for yourself you can't but my point is if one addicted person can birth numerous children who are also like uh born addicted what's the math on that there like it's a never ending number and um we need to start helping the children who are born right now here today and supporting them unless like it's almost like we are um leaving them with no hope for their futures and that the cycle of addiction will continue.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes yeah and very little is done about that I never even really thought about that before so thank you for bringing that up that's um yes they yes they they're not gonna have it'll be very difficult for them yes yeah yeah yeah and then here we go we just keep keep the cycle going keep the cycle going well what are you you know not that you know I'm asking what you're gonna do to change the world but what are you gonna do to change the world Brendel like what do you think we need to do give me give me the answer get give us maybe some maybe somebody some government person is gonna hear this and and go hey that's a good idea what's your thoughts are you dreaming baby um no first and foremost we need to tell these stories these stories need to be heard the more people that hear the stories of um the lived experiences of this drug crisis whether it is um as you said earlier um somebody who's lost someone to it someone who's living with it somebody who's waiting for their loved one to be taken by it we we need to start talking about it and I've been in rooms where this has happened and the energy is incredible and the energy is healing because people when they start hearing your story they they they start reacting emotionally and people have to understand that it could be anyone's child it's um so what like there are um different we talked about involuntary care we there is um the safe um drug injection sites and and all these different services but if they were working wouldn't our numbers be going down instead of going up absolutely they're not i i don't believe i i have brothers who my niece as you know passed away from fentanyl at 24 years old in 2019 i have brothers that uh have been addicted all their life and um uh and i know numerous people and no it is not helping it's not helping so what i see is the biggest roadblock is our politicians will not look at what other countries or even other provinces are doing for uh a few years ago i believe it was medicine alberta and i'm sorry if i got the city wrong what matters is what they did they basically uh solved homelessness because there's a a certain number that's expected i guess um no matter what you do but they uh solved that issue and it went the program was for a few years but what they did was they provided houses like little or not not the um sro yes nice little spaces uh for people and then they wrapped services around that and it was a success until there was another election and guess what happened when they removed those services right so um things can work but you have to find people with the guts and courage to to forget political parties and forget whatever just do it yes there's there's too many good ideas out there that are working yeah I think that I I find that I used to work for the Ministry of Social Services many many years ago and lucky duck I did and I was at the single men's unit on uh Maine and Hastings that's where I was so I saw a lot and what I find out there is that they don't try to fix the problem they just throw money at the problem and then the money is not used properly and if they would take go in more of a prevention method rather than just trying to you know oh you know poor drug addicted people let's make sure they get safe drugs but if they came at it more from prevention it wouldn't cost as much they're not in the hospital they're not i i i saw something on the news that said a couple weeks ago 54 people on the downtown east side overdosed in one day i mean yeah not only okay those 54 people my heart breaks for them and their families but the people trying to keep them alive i mean yeah it's taking a toll we wonder what's wrong with our medical system well there's a good example of where time and money are being spent um and when you say preventative that's what I mean about children who are born into these situations um my daughter's birth father before he passed away told the doctor who had been treating him for three years he told her he knew by the time he was 12 years old that he would die in the streets because you know his parents had him selling drugs at 12 years old and he'd already started that and he knew there was no hope for him and like if if you look at all the 12 year olds we have right now that have been born into this situation oh my god like there's thousands upon thousands upon thousands just in this province.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes yeah and what are we gonna do yeah um yeah we need to we need to um start looking at things that work rather than trying to figure out how to make things better by or just coast we're just coasting we're just coasting we we've put this much money in well doing what yes yeah yeah didn't help my niece didn't help your your daughter's father you know didn't hasn't helped countless others yes yeah yeah they need to yeah step out of the way of course there's the whole um legal aspect of this and with the policing and the um so much money is going into trying to keep the drugs off the street but then when you know someone's arrested they're getting defended by however and they're getting off and turning around and they're back on the streets.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah yeah and then my my my son when he was living next to that shelter the shelter got closed down thank goodness and uh a few several years ago and then he recently sold but um uh the the smell from the meth they were smoking he had to keep his windows closed he couldn't even it was that it was that bad and he called the police yeah not regularly but several times and the police would show up and this is what they said to him there's nothing we can do it's a medical issue it's a medical issue but yet he can't go on his patio he can't sell he tried to sell people would drive up they wouldn't get out of their car then he got stuck with the with the anyway now I'm ranting but then he got stuck with the empty homes tax because he couldn't sell it.

SPEAKER_00:

So he ended up having to move back in because who wants to live there again they a realtor came and showed it open up the window blinds there's people sleeping on the balcony so it's you know it's it's just that we don't realize yeah we see that but we're yeah all of the other effects I just too much um I owned a family center in Langley City here and you know I'd have to go clean up feces off like before people could walk through my front door I had and it was not just costly for you know it's not just costly for businesses because some of them it's the broken glass it's the whatever it's it's so heartbreaking to see like something I was trying to do in the community as a service I couldn't do because of people who needed services that they weren't getting that's crazy. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow well I want everyone to know that if you want to reach out to Brenda Lee um we're gonna have uh ways that you can do that in our show notes. And there's also going to be her website now on her website she actually does have a form that you can fill out uh if you are interested in sharing your story or your loved one's story in uh her her upcoming book. And uh there's no cost to that is there no so there's no cost so don't be scared. Yeah disgratitude yeah so yeah so if so you know if this moves you reach out and uh you don't never know who you will help other than yourself. There will be others for sure we that that you will help. So all of that is going to be in the show notes. So Brenda Lee I just thank you so much for sharing this deep deep conversation but so needed and we need more parents teachers people community minded people out there to step up and say like this is enough. Yeah yeah yeah um yeah hopefully we can just drip love from here on in and we'll fill a bucket so yeah well thank you so much for being here i appreciate it i appreciate all of you being here and watching and we will see you on another episode next time take care everybody thank