ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Tonight’s Pay It 4ward helps a woman who used her own pain to start an initiative that’s caught the attention of the entire county.

“I lost my daughter to a fentanyl poisoning,” said Viviana Sena, a Pay It 4ward nominator. 

Sena says her five-year journey of grief has been long, and painful.

“I had nothing. I had nowhere to turn, I didn’t know where to go, I felt very alone in my grief. I know that I wasn’t the only person who had lost a child to any substance but for me at the time I felt so alone,” said Sena. 

Until she got a call about an opportunity to tell her story at last year’s Bernalillo County Fentanyl Summit. The call came from Deputy County Manager Lisa Sedillo White.

“She knew that there was a crisis, and she knew that there was a need,” Sena said. 

Sedillo White was the brains behind keep NM Alive. It aims to educate, support, and give hope to those affected by the fentanyl epidemic.

Sena says the initiative – and the group behind it– has been invaluable to her over the past year. 

“It has brought a lot of healing, and just knowing that we’re educating not just our youth, but everybody in our communities and in our cities is just, it’s just it’s so profound, and it’s so needed,” said Sena. 

Over the past year they’ve gone to schools, concerts, and baseball games.

“We’re just out there just spreading the awareness and education,” said Sena.

So, it was time to Pay It 4ward with $400. 

Watch the video above for more.