Family pictures will be on display at Arlington Heights’ North School Park Friday during a commemoration of International Overdose Awareness Day.
But they aren’t just any photos of friends and relatives — these photos have a deadly serious purpose.
The event runs 5:30 to 8 p.m. and is hosted by Live4Lali, an Arlington Heights-based organization working to prevent substance use disorder and reduce the stigma around it.
Although the intent is to raise awareness, “We, in particular, are honoring those that have lost the battle,” said Jody Daitchman, co-founder of Live4Lali, which she established with her family in 2009 after the accidental overdose death of her son, Alex Laliberte in 2008.
The event “belongs to the people that no longer have their loved ones,” added Daitchman, who started the “Angel Moms” group 10 years ago. The community started with just a few moms and has grown to more than 200, all of whom have lost a child — or in some cases, more than one — to a substance use-related death.
She said speakers will address the crowd, including one who lost their mother, as well as another who lost a child and has another child who is still struggling.
“Awareness is a very big thing that I want people to take away from it,” Daitchman said. “And I’m hoping that people that have never experienced anything like this, if they’re walking by the park, stop by and have a rude awakening. This is real.”
The event will include Narcan training, plus Narcan and Fentanyl test strip distribution.
“They call it a club you don’t want to belong to, and I can attest that it’s not,” Daitchman said. “Every day I work with people that are losing their loved ones, and it’s very hard to watch them start the journey because I know how it’s going to go.”
International Overdose Awareness Day, an initiative of the Australia-based Penington Institute, is the world’s largest annual campaign to end overdose, remember those who have died without stigma, and acknowledge the grief of family and friends left behind. The theme for 2024 is “Together We Can.”
In 2021, an estimated 296 million people — one in every 17 people aged 15 to 64 — had used a drug in the past 12 months. That’s a 23% increase from 2011, according to the International Overdose Awareness Day website.
Opioids account for two-thirds of drug overdose deaths. The estimated number of people using opioids globally has increased from an estimated 26 million to 36 million people in 2010 to more than 61 million in 2020, the website said.
According to the Illinois Department of Public Health website, the total of opioid-overdose emergency department cases just in Cook County from January 2023 through June 2024 is 16,705.