An opportunity for the community to come together on Saturday to remember lives lost to overdoses and raise awareness of the ongoing opioid crisis.
The Reaching for the Stars Optimist Club of Windsor and Essex County invites the community to gather at All Saints Church for a poignant evening of reflection, remembrance, and hope.
The gathering at All Saints Church, located at 330 City Hall Square, will be held from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and will serve as a powerful reminder that while the grief from loss is real, so too is the determination to foster change.
Saturday marks International Overdose Awareness Day, which is a day dedicated to commemorating those we have lost to the drug crisis while inspiring change for a brighter future.
Melissa Nespolon, charter president for the Reaching for the Stars Optimist club, says it's a personal issue for her after losing her little brother Joe to an overdose back in 2020.
"We really just understood how hard it was for people not only who are actually experiencing it, but also the family around them. So our big thing was how were we going to remember Joe, and we wanted to ensure that no other family was going to go through what we had just gone through," she said.
Nespolon says when they saw that International Overdose Awareness Day was held annually on August 31 they decided to start holding these gatherings beginning back in 2021.
She says they wanted to ensure that the lives of those lost are not forgotten, and an event like this allows families and friends to remember while continuing to speak out.
"People don't even realize what's happening out there until they're a part of it. I think the biggest part too was after we kind of figured out what was going on with my brother, I didn't even know where to start. I didn't know the resources, I didn't know who to look to, I didn't even know how to get him the right help. And that opened my eyes."
Nesponlon says the event will also provide a platform for information sharing, encouraging conversations around prevention, recovery, and the importance of community support.
"It does so much for so many families that have been affected by it, or people who are going through recovery, or just even knowing where to go to get more resources. This year has been a little bit tougher because it's the long weekend, getting people out and different agencies, but we're always just a heartbeat away to try to find people different avenues," she said,
The evening will culminate with a candlelight vigil at sunset, which organizers say will offer a moment of quiet reflection and collective strength as they light the way forward.
- with files from AM800's The Shift with Patty Handysides