Radical Love. Real Support. Right Here in Buffalo.
Connections to Giving Back is Western New York's only peer-led Syringe Service Program.
We are not a program that asks you to change before you walk through our door. We meet you where you are, and don't leave you there.
Founder Highlight
Connections to Giving Back was founded by Ivette Chavez Gonzalez, the first Latina woman to found a needle exchange program in Western New York. Ivette,
a person living with undetectable HIV and cured of Hep C, brings her own lived experience to every aspect of this organization's leadership and mission.
Mission
Connections to Giving Back is a grassroots, peer-led outreach and mutual aid organization rooted in radical love. We center dignity, unconditional care, and harm reduction in everything we do.
Vision
We envision a Western New York where every person, regardless of their relationship with substances, their housing status, or their history, is met with love, access to resources, and the power to define their own well-being. We are building that community, together.
Who We Serve
We show up for people the system has made it hardest to reach: people using drugs, people without housing, people in mental health crisis. No preconditions,
no sobriety requirement, no paperwork before care.
Everyone doing this work has lived it. Our team is made up of people with direct experience of the systems we help others navigate, which is why we know what actually helps, and what only looks like help.
What We Do
We go to people.
On foot and by vehicle,
four days a week, plus monthly community pop-ups.
We keep people alive.
Western New York's only peer-led Syringe Service Program; naloxone, test strips, safer use supplies, wound care.
We walk with people.
Treatment, housing, mental health, primary care, connected through people who already know you.
Why This Work Matters:
The Need in Our Community
241
Preventable overdose deaths
in Erie County in 2025
24%
of fatal overdoses involve African Americans,
who make up only 14% of the population
20%
of all 2025 overdose deaths are
stimulant-related, up from 7% in 2022
African Americans make up 14% of Erie County's population but account for 24% of fatal overdoses. Hispanic residents represent
6% of the population but 9% of overdose deaths. These are not statistics, they are our neighbors, our family, our community.
Connections to Giving Back exists to close these gaps with services, with love, and with people who have lived this reality themselves.
Source: Erie County Department of Health, 2025
21
Average overdose deaths per month
in Erie County as of October 2025
Racial disparities in overdose deaths remain one of the most urgent justice issues in our region. At the peak of disparity in mid-2024, Black residents accounted for 35% of Erie County overdose deaths while representing just 14% of the population. Hispanic residents represent 6% of the population but 9% of overdose deaths.
Harm reduction is not just a public health strategy.
It is a racial justice strategy.
Source: Erie County Medical Examiner's Office, via BRIDGE Erie Harm Reduction Overdose Data Updates, November 2025.
"Nothing about us, without us."
Connections to Giving Back is built by and for people with lived and living experience.
Get Involved
Our volunteers are the backbone of Connections to Giving Back. From street outreach to grant writing, every skill and every hour matters. No harm reduction experience required. We will walk you through it.
Support Our Work
Connections to Giving Back runs on community love and community funding. Every donation directly supports life-saving harm reduction supplies, meals, clothing, and outreach services that reach the people most often left behind by traditional systems.