INDIANAPOLIS — The lives lost to an overdose will be honored by friends, family, and community members during an event Sunday in Indianapolis for International Overdose Awareness Day.
The event, organized by Overdose Lifeline, is from 5-8 p.m. Sunday at the Indiana State Museum.
International Overdose Awareness Day is Monday and events for the day are taking place throughout the world. The day was initiatedin 2001 in Melbourne, Australia.
"Really the whole purpose behind Overdose Awareness Day is to remember people that we've lost," Justin Phillips, founder and executive director of Overdose Lifeline, said. "When you lose someone, especially to this stigmatized cause of death, it's very devastating and hard to talk about and you feel alone and there's some shame involved. The purpose of this day really is to raise up those that we've lost and remember them and give them importance and value for the life that they did, not their cause of death."
Phillips won a Jefferson Award in April 2016.
Organizers of the event hope to give people who have lost someone to an overdose a place to come together and not feel alone.
There has been an increase in overdoses during the COVID-19 pandemic, Phillips said. Data shows there are about 29 overdoses a day just in Marion County.
Since this time last year, emergency departments in Indiana have seen a 59 percent increase in overdose events, said Douglas Huntsinger, Indiana Executive Director for Drug Prevention, Treatment, and Enforcement, during the Commission to Combat Drug Abuse meeting in August. There has also been a nearly 60 percent increase in Naloxone administration by emergency medical services personnel.
Phillips says Sunday's event is just one way to bring awareness to this serious issue.
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A Naloxone training session and overdose reversal kit giveaway will also take place at Sunday's event.
"No one can get to recovery if they're not alive," Phillips said. "Overdoses are happening on a daily basis everywhere. We lose approximately 184 lives a day in this country and access to Naloxone is the only way we are going to save someone's life in that situation and get them to recovery."
Pictures of people who have died of an overdose will also be displayed at Sunday's event.
People who have lost someone to an overdose can write their name on a blank ribbon in the lawn outside the Overdose Lifeline building, located at 1100 West 42nd Street, near Michigan Road. The ribbons will be on the lawn through Tuesday.
Organizers of Sunday's event say social distancing guidelines will be followed and everyone at the event will be required to wear a mask.
You can visit Overdose Lifeline's website for a full schedule for the event.
