Everyone Needs a Starting Point
Starting Point began with a simple belief: people deserve access to care, practical resources and compassion without judgment.
The idea took shape in 2019, when Maggie Hart began exploring how expanding public health approaches in North Carolina could be brought directly into rural communities. She brought the idea to Ashley Hale, and together they began building what would eventually become Starting Point.
They understood from the beginning that a new grassroots organization would not have the funding, staff or infrastructure of an established institution. Starting Point would have to grow differently.
Maggie helped establish the foundation for direct services while Ashley focused on building relationships with community organizations, healthcare providers, pharmacies, funders, advocates and public health professionals. Those relationships created opportunities that funding alone could not.
Partnership, resource sharing and finding practical ways around barriers became part of how Starting Point worked before the organization ever formally opened its doors.
Starting in a Crisis
Starting Point began operations in 2021, initially serving Orange and Alamance Counties.
The timing presented an immediate challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic had disrupted traditional outreach and made already difficult-to-access services even harder to reach. Starting Point adapted, using contactless deliveries, mailbox drop-offs and other approaches to continue getting resources directly to people.
At the same time, demand in Alamance County increased dramatically. When a hospital-based program providing similar services closed, many of the people who had relied on it were referred to Starting Point.
A young organization suddenly found itself helping meet the needs of a much larger community during an unprecedented public health emergency.
That experience helped establish a principle that continues to guide Starting Point today: when traditional systems are difficult to access, community-based organizations can help make sure people do not fall through the cracks.
Growing Through Community
Starting Point has never grown according to a traditional organizational blueprint. Its growth has usually begun with an unmet need, followed by people willing to work together to address it.
As demand increased, the organization expanded both its team and its geographic reach.
In 2023, Brandi Neumann joined Starting Point and expanded its work into Caswell County, including the development of reentry services for people returning to their communities following incarceration.
In 2024, Rachel and Ryan joined the team, strengthening Starting Point’s ability to serve Person and Durham Counties and extending its reach into additional communities.
Throughout that growth, Starting Point continued building partnerships across the region, connecting organizations and individuals and finding new ways to expand access while preserving the personal relationships at the center of its work.
June 2024 marked another important milestone when Starting Point received its first opioid settlement funding from Rockingham County. The investment supported services in another rural community while helping strengthen the infrastructure necessary for continued growth.
Bringing Public Health Into the Pharmacy
Some of Starting Point’s most important work has come from asking a simple question: How can we make resources easier to reach?
Community pharmacies offered one answer.
Ashley began exploring ways to make public health resources available to people who might never attend an outreach event or contact a community organization directly. Through collaboration with the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists and Carrboro Family Pharmacy, Starting Point developed a model for placing free public health kits directly within a familiar community healthcare setting.
Instead of requiring people to find Starting Point, Starting Point could bring resources to places people were already going.
The model expanded to Josef’s Pharmacy in Durham and Siler City Pharmacy in Siler City, increasing public access to lifesaving supplies, education and support.
These partnerships reflect something fundamental about Starting Point’s approach: public health works better when community organizations, healthcare providers, people with lived experience and the communities they serve work together rather than in separate systems.
Where We Are Today
What began as a conversation between two people in 2019 and grew into services in two counties in 2021 now reaches seven North Carolina counties.
But Starting Point’s growth cannot be measured only by geography.
It is measured by the person who knows they can ask for help without being judged. By the pharmacist who understands that public health extends beyond the walls of a doctor’s office. By the community partner who asks what can be accomplished together. And by the people who continue showing up for communities that too often encounter barriers before they encounter help.
Starting Point was never built by one person. Maggie’s original vision, Ashley’s relationship-building, the leadership of team members in their communities and the contributions of partners, volunteers and people with lived experience have all shaped the organization.
Today, Starting Point is strengthening the organizational foundation underneath that work while continuing to grow as a community-based public health organization grounded in evidence, collaboration, lived experience and respect for the dignity of every person it serves.
A great deal has changed since those early mailbox deliveries during COVID. The principles behind the work have not.
Meet people where they are. Treat people with dignity. Provide practical, evidence-based support. Build relationships instead of barriers.
And keep showing up. Everyone needs a Starting Point.