(The Center Square) – On an overcast mid-October day, just inside the Third Avenue offices of We Heart Seattle, Executive Director Andrea Suarez and two of her staff members sat next to a table covered with gallon-sized Ziploc bags filled with used drug foil collected in recent weeks from parks and streets in Seattle.

On an adjacent table, a “harm reduction” kit provided to drug addicts by Public Health – Seattle & King County displayed

“I've probably picked up a hundred thousand needles and now a hundred thousand or more pieces of foil,” she told The Center Square. “And my motto is always like the truth was beneath the trash.”

Suarez’s journey began early in the pandemic, with a small group of volunteers

“And as I got into the belly of the beast, picking up trash, I started forming

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