Richard Taite, founder of Carrara Treatment and host of We’re Out of Time, is matching every donation to the CDC Foundation’s Community Overdose Prevention Efforts, dollar for dollar, up to $25,000.
Community Overdose Prevention Efforts (COPE) is a CDC Foundation program that works alongside communities across the United States to strengthen overdose prevention and response. It funds peer navigators and recovery specialists placed directly in communities, real-time data systems that detect overdose spikes as they happen, and hands-on training for frontline workers including physicians. The CDC Foundation is an independent nonprofit authorized by Congress to mobilize philanthropic support for public health. It is a separate organization from the CDC itself.
Richard Taite, founder of Carrara Treatment Wellness & Spa and host of the We’re Out of Time podcast, is matching every donation dollar for dollar up to $25,000. Taite has spent more than two decades working with individuals and families affected by substance use disorders. The match means a $50 gift becomes $100 for community overdose prevention.
No. The CDC Foundation is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit, authorized by Congress, that mobilizes philanthropic partners to support public health work. It is not a government agency and it is separate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Donations to the CDC Foundation are tax-deductible under U.S. law.
Three things. Outreach and support, which means peer navigation, recovery support, and connections to treatment for people at highest risk. Real-time response, the data systems that let communities detect overdose spikes and mobilize before the pattern spreads. Provider education, training for physicians and frontline workers so care is safer and better integrated. Much of it is infrastructure you never see: the partnerships and data systems behind a faster response.
Public funding provides the foundation but cannot always move quickly enough. Overdose patterns shift fast, with new substances, new hot spots and new populations at risk, and rural and underserved communities carry the heaviest burden with the fewest resources. Philanthropic dollars can be deployed in real time, filling urgent gaps and scaling approaches that already work while slower funding cycles catch up.
In August 2026, for Overdose Awareness Month, Richard sat down with two people from the CDC Foundation. Together they get into stigma, what happens when law enforcement and public health actually work together, harm reduction on the ground, and the drug trends they are watching most closely right now.
President and CEO of the CDC Foundation. She explains what the CDC Foundation actually is and how it differs from the CDC, tells stories from her early career as a rural physician in Appalachia, and walks through a real public health investigation that stopped a multi-state outbreak before it ever made the news.
A CDC Foundation public health analyst in San Diego who spent 31 years as a deputy district attorney. She brings a perspective almost nobody has: three decades prosecuting narcotics cases, and her own family’s experience with addiction and recovery.
How could it not be treated like a public health crisis? The criminal justice system alone can’t do it all. Terri Perez, JD, CDC Foundation
Not car accidents. Not cancer. Overdose.
That statistic comes from the CDC Foundation, and it is the sentence that should stop anyone reading this page. Recent national data shows progress, which is real and worth saying out loud. But the communities with the fewest resources and the highest barriers to care are still carrying the heaviest load, and behind every number is a person: a neighbor, a parent, a young adult with their whole life in front of them.
Prevention works. It is chronically underfunded, unglamorous, and almost invisible when it succeeds.
What success looks like is a phone call that never has to be made.
Richard Taite has spent more than 20 years in addiction treatment. He built Cliffside Malibu, sold it, and came back to build Carrara because the drug epidemic arrived and, already a father, he started looking at the crisis through a parent’s eyes, where one counterfeit pill is enough.
Treatment is what he does for a living. But treatment is what happens after. COPE is what happens before: the peer navigator who reaches someone the week after a non-fatal overdose, the data system that catches a bad batch moving through a county, the physician who gets trained before the prescription is written.
That work does not have a marketing budget. It has donors.
I’ve spent my life helping people recover from addiction. But if we can get to the place of prevention first, this would help save so many more lives. Richard Taite, We’re Out of Time, August 11, 2026
Every donation is matched dollar for dollar, up to $25,000.
Donations go directly to the CDC Foundation. Carrara does not receive any part of your gift.
Donate to COPEEvery dollar is matched, up to $25,000.
Expands peer navigation, recovery support, and connections to treatment for the people at highest risk.
Strengthens the data systems that let communities detect overdose spikes and respond before a pattern becomes a wave.
Trains frontline workers, including physicians, to deliver safer and better-integrated care.
Donations are made directly to the CDC Foundation, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Carrara Treatment does not receive, process, or hold any portion of your gift.
This page is about prevention. If you are past that point, these are the resources. No forms, no sales call.
If you would like to talk with someone at Carrara about treatment options, our admissions team is at (888) 383-5207. Nothing about that conversation is connected to a donation.
No. Richard Taite, Carrara’s founder, is a donor to the CDC Foundation’s COPE campaign, and that is the whole of the relationship. The CDC Foundation is an independent nonprofit and does not endorse treatment providers. Neither the CDC Foundation nor the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is affiliated with Carrara Treatment Wellness & Spa.
Yes. The CDC Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, so donations are tax-deductible under U.S. law. You give directly to the CDC Foundation and your receipt comes from them.
No. Donations are made directly to the CDC Foundation. Carrara Treatment does not receive, process, or hold any portion of your gift, and Richard Taite pays the match personally.
Every dollar donated to COPE is matched by Richard Taite, up to a total of $25,000. A $50 gift becomes $100. Once the $25,000 ceiling is reached, donations still go to COPE and still fund the work.
Give, and share the campaign. COPE funds peer navigation, real-time overdose data systems and provider training in communities across the United States, and the match doubles what your gift does. The episode with Dr. Judy Monroe and Terri Perez is also worth an hour if you want to understand where the work actually happens.
Every donation to the CDC Foundation’s COPE campaign is matched dollar for dollar by Richard Taite, up to $25,000.
Carrara Treatment Wellness & Spa and Richard Taite support the CDC Foundation’s Community Overdose Prevention Efforts as donors. The CDC Foundation is an independent nonprofit and does not endorse any treatment provider, product, or service. Neither the CDC Foundation nor the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is affiliated with Carrara Treatment Wellness & Spa. Donations are made directly to the CDC Foundation.
If this is an emergency, call 911. For free confidential support 24 hours a day, call or text 988.
This page is general information, not medical advice.
