A fresh take

The event has always been about connecting.

This year, there is greater focus on engaging as well.

Connecting the Links is changing up its style to center around a “video-driven concert experience” created by two Jay County High School graduates.

The first year of Connecting the Links in 2017 focused on testimonials from those who deal with drug addiction from a variety of angles — from law enforcement, emergency responders, school officials, recovery experts and the addicts themselves. The 2018 iteration served more as a resource fair with speakers featured across a four-hour span.

Saturday’s event, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Jay County High School auditorium, will still include testimonials and local organizations involved in combatting drug addiction, but it will have a decidedly different feel.

“We just want to keep it fresh, keep it new, be able to attract different people each year,” said Randy Davis, founder of A Better Life – Brianna’s Hope, which is co-sponsoring Connecting the Links along with Jay County Drug Prevention Coalition. “We don’t want to get in a rut with what we’re about, who we are, what we can offer. We just want to be able to reach as many folks … as we can.”

With that goal in mind, Davis and coalition executive director Kimbra Chenoweth-O’Brien turned to a pair of 1998 JCHS graduates — Eric Maitlen and Aric Hartvig — for help.

Maitlen is the founder of Two/Eight Ministries and a musician, formerly of the band My Yellow Rickshaw. Hartvig is a producer for WFYI TV in Indianapolis and a freelance videographer. They had worked together on projects before, including an effort to raise money for a former classmate’s ailing daughter, and are teaming up again for Connecting the Links. 

The “video-driven concert experience” in the JCHS auditorium will feature live music from Maitlen, his wife Jillian and a variety of other Indianapolis musicians. It will be accompanied by video projected on a 20-foot screen, with breaks for vignettes that give those in attendance a look at the reality of drug addiction in Indiana.

“It really tells the story almost through a documentary music video, but the music is live,” said Hartvig.

The musical selections will range from the well-known — by artists like John Mellencamp, The Jackson Five and Coldplay — to a couple of original tunes that will be performed for the first time. The video segments feature a healthcare professional, a heroin addict, the mother of a deceased addict and a recovered addict.

The goal, Maitlen said, is to break a stigma and viewpoint that he once held — that addiction to heroin and other drugs is a problem that occurs in big cities and involves “bad people.”

“Let’s show them that these addicts, they’re not moral degenerates,” said Maitlen. “They’re not what you have in your head as a drug addict. They’re our families. They’re our friends. They’re people with incredible potential and people who have the capacity to change their entire community, and they’re just stuck. …

“Until we start seeing human beings as human beings, we’re going to lose this battle. So we’re just trying to really help people care about people who are addicted in their community, to have sympathy and compassion for the families that are affected …”

Both Maitlen and Hartvig noted that the drug addiction epidemic has hit close to them through friends and/or family. They felt compelled to make a difference, and wanted to do it in a way that would be accessible and welcoming to the community as a whole.

“We wanted to use music and video to share this thing in a way that people would connect with, that’s going to hit the heart,” said Maitlen.

In addition to the concert and accompanying video, there will also be live testimonials from local residents who have dealt with addiction. Davis added that about 20 organizations will be represented as well, including Meridian Services, Second Chance at Life Ministries, law enforcement and the drug coalition.