Clean Needles Now started in 1991 when Matthew Francis and Renee Edgington, artists and AIDS activists, through acts of civil disobedience demanded the right to provide sterile syringes to injection drug users.

Matt and Renee were killed in an automobile accident in South Africa on August 28, 1998.

The organization that they founded has survived and grown. Clean Needles Now is a product of their love, their dreams and dedication. Each day, as we fight to continue to be able to provide this vital service, it is the spirit of Matt and Renee that sustains us.