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Overdose Awareness Day expands

Observance takes place over 3 days to honor memory of lost loved ones

By William Kibler 3 min read

The local observance of International Overdose Awareness Day this year will be spread over the last 11 days of August, as local people remember and honor loved ones who have died of substance use disorder.

A newly conceived version of the event will take place at Penn State Altoona on Aug. 31, the official date for Overdose Awareness Day; while the regular Blair County observance will take place at Trans4mation Church on Aug. 29, in keeping with the local practice of holding the event on a Saturday; with another newly conceived component of the observance having taken place Tuckahoe Park on Friday, according to Families United for Change President Marianne Sinisi, whose son Shawn died of an overdose at age 26 in 2018.

Sponsored by Penn State Altoona's Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, the Aug. 31 campus event will include informational table displays from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. by Families United and the Blair County Overdose Awareness Day committee as well as an outdoor display of individualized posters bearing the pictures and first names of 190 local individuals who've died from substance use disorder, according to an event poster.

The table event at the campus will include giveaways of "remembrance bags" to honor and support those affected by substance use disorder, according to the flyer.

The commemorative posters will be mounted on wire frames like political campaign signs, Sinisi said.

The organizers hope the event will help make the local students more aware of the Families United cause, while also helping them connect more closely with the community at large, she said.

The free event at Trans4mation Church, planned to run from 4 to 8 p.m. Aug. 29, will include those same posters outside the church.

Inside, there will be food, live music, blessing bags and favors to give away, personalized decoration of Christmas ornaments, informational tables staffed by local recovery providers, a live butterfly release, a memorial quilt, a memorial video showing each of the 190 individuals whose families have registered their lost loved ones with the committee and a speaker who has lost two children to substance use disorder, according to Michelle Lynam, who founded the local event in 2019 with Stacey Lingafelt.

Both those founders lost sons to overdoses.

Lynam's son Greg died at age 29 in 2017.

Lingafelt's son Cody Belin died at age 19 in 2016.

There were 35 people remembered for that first local Overdose Day in 2019.

This year's new total features 20 more names than there were last year.

The event is a day of remembrance but also a celebration of life, Lynam said.

"We try to make it upbeat," she said. "(We try) to avoid the stigma."

The event is designed to counteract the feelings expressed by some people that "our loss is less than another type of loss," Lynam said.

Attendees often find the event is a good opportunity to be in the company of people who understand where you're coming from and what you have been through, Lynam said.

Friday's event at Tuckahoe involved the placement of the commemorative posters for a few hours, with the permission of city officials, Sinisi said.

It was used to draw attention to the Families United and Overdose Day cause, to the memorial that has been at Tuckahoe for several years, and to the events on Aug. 29 and Aug. 31, Sinisi said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.

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