WESTFIELD—On Aug. 31, the city of Westfield will be holding a vigil in remembrance of International Overdose Awareness Day.
The vigil will be on the Park Square Green, beginning at 6:30 p.m., and is organized by the Westfield Drug Task Force. During the event, a candlelight vigil will occur, in addition to speakers and music. Residents and others can also pay their respects at the wall of remembrance, which will also be at the Green. One notable speaker, according to Westfield’s community outreach coordinator Amber Danahey, will be Kirk Jonah, who Danahey said lost his son due to an overdose.
“Join your family, friends, and neighbors for an evening of spreading awareness and hope about addiction and those who are or may be struggling with it,” according to the event’s page on the City of Westfield’s Police website.
The event will be coming on the heels of the press release from the Baker-Polito Administration on Aug. 16 related to updated analysis on the opioid epidemic. In the press release, it was noted that the administration released updated information for its Chapter 55 report, which provides “residents, policy makers, and public officials new information on the sweep of the opioid epidemic in Massachusetts,” according to the release. It includes a 100-page analysis of data from 2011 to 2015 and gives an overview of those in the state at the greatest risk for overdose.
“The Chapter 55 report was released for the first time in the fall of 2016 and is the only report in the nation to analyze more than 20 data sets from across state government and present new estimates of the percentage of Massachusetts residents with an opioid use disorder,” according to the release.
Among key findings in the update, according to the press release, was that non-fatal overdoses from 2001 to 2015 “increased approximately 200 percent, and the total number of non-fatal overdoses during that time exceeded 65,000.”
