Written By Annastasia Rose Beal
7/27/2022
In September of 2021, I had been trying to raise funds on GoFundMe for about 2 months to become a 501(c)3 nonprofit tax-exempt organization. My fundraising efforts weren't bringing in any donations & at that time I was really struggling to buy all of the necessary supplies for our next booking which was a 6-night festival in October 2021. I was desperate to secure around 100 Fentanyl test strips & decided to reach out to local needle exchange programs & other harm reduction groups in Southern California asking for help. I quickly discovered that my county had no such programs available & spent 3 weeks connecting with more than 50 organizations & harm reduction enthusiasts online. Nobody was able or willing to help.
I felt defeated & like all the work I had put into this endeavor was for nothing. I honestly felt like giving up. I went back to my recent social media accounts to see if there was anything I had missed. Somehow I somehow came across the page for DoseTest, a local harm reduction group I hadn't seen anywhere else during my previous online searches. With the 6-night event just a week away, I knew this was my last chance to try & secure the 100 Fentanyl strips I desperately needed or I would have to cancel attending the event.
I vividly remember how teary-eyed I was writing my Twitter message to the DoseTest account. I poured everything into that message as I confessed my feelings of failure & defeat. My initial message was so long & raw that as soon as I sent it I instantly regretted it. Within an hour of sending my message, I received a very brief response asking to set up a call for later that same morning.
Moments before our scheduled call I get a notification that 100% of our GoFundMe goal had been reached. I can't adequately describe the joy, relief & validation I felt. At that moment it felt like someone saw the work I had been doing, they saw my vision, & believed in me enough to support me & what I was building. I was still in shock & my heart was still pounding from the adrenaline as my phone rang for my scheduled phone call with DoseTest.
I quickly tried to pull myself together & answered the call. I introduced myself & immediately jumped into talking about the work I was doing. About a minute into the call I realized that I hadn't let this person speak at all & that my speech was all-over-the-place. I stopped mid-sentence, took a deep breath, apologized, & explained I had just received a life-saving & life-changing donation which caused my behavior. Mark Bjorneestrand introduced himself as the founder of DoseTest & told me that prior to our call he pulled up HRC's Facebook page where he came across our GoFundMe & made the donation.
Since connecting with Mark last year he has provided financial support, knowledge, insight, supplies, resources, & even friendship - asking for nothing in return. I'm immensely thankful for the contributions he's made that pushed my organization forward, & I will already be grateful for how he's affected my life by doing so. The effects & impact of his dedication to the harm reduction community reach all around the world & I'm sure there is so much he has done & is currently doing so much more that I'm not even aware of. I proudly support & promote DoseTest! It's not only because of what he's offered to my organization or because of the legitimately life-saving products offered by DoseTest but because of the incredible person that is behind it all.
DoseTest offers testing supplies on products like reagent testing kits & Fentanyl test strips at a price point lower than its competitors. The prices aren't low due to low quality, they are the exact same products you can find anywhere else. DoseTest offers low prices because for Mark it's not about profit, it's about people.
Price per Reagent Testing Kit
DoseTest 10-1: $59.95
DanceSafe 9-1: $119.00
Bunk Police 11-1: $115.00
Price per Fentanyl Test Strip
DoseTest: $0.99
DanceSafe: $2.09
Bunk Police: $1.99
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