After losing five family members, Leila Ramos created Hope Resuscitated to make sure others don't face the same heartbreak

When Leila Ramos tried to get Narcan after losing five family members to overdoses, she hit a wall everywhere she went: you had to be 18. She was a minor, grieving, and frustrated that something so simple as age stood between her and a drug that could save lives.

So she decided to change that. The recent high school graduate started Hope Resuscitated, placing bright boxes of free Narcan in public libraries where anyone can grab them, no questions asked.

"I started Hope Resuscitated around fall of last year after losing five of my family members to overdose," Ramos said. "I wasn't able to access Narcan on my own because of my age. You have to be 18 anywhere you went. And so that kind of snowballed into this idea."

How YEA Changed Everything

The idea might have stayed only that if Ramos hadn't ended up in the Young Entrepreneurs Academy in Baton Rouge. That's where things clicked into place. She learned how to turn her passion project into something real, and from there, everything moved fast.

She started showing up at mental health events around town, introducing herself and explaining what she wanted to do. Community leaders began reaching out. Distributors got on board. Pretty soon, she had the connections she needed to make it happen.

Today, you can find Hope Resuscitated's boxes at the Zachary and West Feliciana libraries. The Narcan inside is good until February 2026—Ramos just restocked them. And she's got big plans: approval for every Baton Rouge library, with Jackson and Ponchatoula on her wishlist.

 

The Facebook Warriors Come Out

Not everyone's thrilled about the boxes. Ramos gets hit with criticism on social media, especially on those Rants and Raves pages, the Facebook groups we all know too well.

"A lot of people usually have an issue that it's Narcan and not some other drug that doesn't have to do with drug addicts," she said. Why not insulin? Why not EpiPens? That's the refrain she hears most.

Some folks worry the boxes will attract homeless people to the library. Ramos just shrugs at that one: "They're already allowed to go there, so it's something that can help them."

It's Personal

For Ramos, this isn't just about helping strangers. Hope Resuscitated has been her way of working through her own grief.

"It also started as a healing thing for me," she said. "It's really healing for me to help prevent overdoses as someone who's experienced so much loss."

When people push back against helping addicts, she keeps it simple: "I think it's important to remember that addicts are people too and they're someone's baby too. They're someone's mom or dad too, and their lives are just as important as anyone else's."

What's Next

This fall, Ramos heads to LSU to study biology with her sights set on medical school and radiology. But she's not putting Hope Resuscitated on the back burner.

 

She wants to partner with West Feliciana library to teach people how to actually use Narcan, because having it is only half the battle. Her bigger dream? Getting into schools somehow, maybe as a club, to get more teenagers involved in fighting addiction from this angle.

"I think that getting teens involved in this side of drugs and fighting addiction is one of the best preventative measures out there," she said.

Right now, it's mostly just Ramos and her mom running things, but those little boxes in libraries keep doing their job, waiting quietly for someone who needs a second chance.

For information about Narcan training, contact Capital Area Human Services, which offers free certification programs.