Iowa couple who lost daughter use billboard to raise fentanyl awareness
Robert and Karletha Gilliam lost their only child, 22-year-old Ciara Gilliam, last August from an accidental fentanyl overdose.
As the couple continues to heal, they want to help other families in Iowa.
"We're going to keep fighting the good fight. Getting the word out there. We got to get these pills off the street," Robert Gilliam said.
The Gilliams, along with the awareness group , are hoping to spread awareness through a billboard on Ingersoll Avenue and 23rd Street in Des Moines.
"By doing this billboard, it memorializes all these young kids that have passed away from this, and it educates the general public," Robert Gilliam said.
The Gilliams are hoping to purchase four slides, each slide with images of Iowans who died from fentanyl. The ads are expected to run on the billboard in May for 28 days.
"It gets their message out when they feel like they don't have a voice," Karletha Gilliam said. "We have to bring notice to this epidemic that's taking so many lives."
Besides The Billboard Project, the couple hopes to turn Ciara's legacy into a mission to help others.
The Gilliams plan to start a nonprofit organization called the CIARA initiative with hopes to open a treatment center one day.