International Overdose Awareness Day Events

SASS Recovery is hosting Colors of Hope: Paint and Share to Illuminate Overdose Awareness

The City of Fitchburg Health Department Outreach & Prevention invites the community to join together to remember lives lost to overdose, give hope those to those struggling and provide support for each other.
Resource tables from local substance use treatment providers will open at 6:15pm. Luminary bags will be available to remember/honor a loved one. A photo display will put faces to those lost to the disease of addiction.Please bring a photo of a loved one or email to [email protected]

Recovery Exchange will be hanging the ribbons on poles in collaboration with Scars in Heaven followed by a candlelight vigil.

Local recovery centers will be hosting an overdose awareness event. Food trucks, childrens activities.

Join us for the 14th year of this healing and peaceful ritual. Gather with us by the harbor to walk the luminaries, remember the special people we have lost, and support those they left behind. Please stay linger & just be together. You can make a bag onsite or bring your own. lights will be provided. Rain date 8/27/24 6:30-8:30pm

The event will begin at City Hall with our elected officials then we will march down to Custom House Square for music, speakers, food and connection.

Instructions:

-Must register ahead of time to reserve a butterfly: [email protected]

-please include photo if you would like us to add your loved one’s photo to the memory tree

Bring beach or folding chair

Ice cream social following ceremony 

Overflow parking across the street at the bank

Join us and celebrate recovery and support those who are impacted by substance use disorder. There will be local resources, guest speakers, free Narcan and training, light refreshments, and a raffle!

In honor of International Overdose Awareness Day, the Taunton Opiate Task Force is hosting an event on Wednesday August 28, 2024 from 5pm-7pm at Liberty & Union Park to remember loved ones lost to us, support those who struggle, and celebrate recovery fro

Planned as a partnership between the MA Bureau of Substance Addiction Services (BSAS), Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC), and Boston Medical Center (BMC) this year's statewide IOAD memorial will take place from August 29 through September 1 at Liberty Mall on the Boston Common, across from the State House. On Thursday 8/29 we will plant 22,125 purple flags on the lawn at Liberty Mall in remembrance of the 20,000 lives lost to overdose in Massachusetts between 2012-2022. An additional 2,125 flags will represent that many overdose deaths in our state during 2023.

The event will have a speaker from the perspective of a sibling who has lost two siblings to drug overdose and from a member of Learn to Cope which is a peer led support group for families who have loved ones who have or maybe experiencing issues with substance use disorder. The front windows of Town Hall will be lit will purple lights. Family members, friends or anyone in the community will have the opportunity to write the name of their loved ones that they lost due to a drug overdose on purple lawn flags that will be placed in front of Town Hall.

This event is for the Codman Sq (and others) to grieve the loss of loved ones to fatal opioid overdoses and to celebrate recovery by presenting coins and medallions to makr various lengths of sobriety.

Brockton Area’s 2024 Overdose Vigil by Candlelight will be held on Thursday, August 29th at Massasoit Community College in the Quad. Resources will be available starting at 6:00 PM, and the program will begin at 7:00 PM. Each year, the Brockton Area Prevention Collaborative collects photographs from community members across Massachusetts of loved ones who have lost their battle with substance use disorder. These photographs are compiled into a video slideshow in an effort to put a face to this disorder and help eliminate the stigma associated with it.

Candlelight vigil: music, words of remembrance, candle lighting ceremony, create memorial stones for Memorial Tree.

IN REMEMBRANCE OF THOSE LOST TO SUBSTANCE USE Please join us to remember those who have passed and help bring awareness to the cause. WHEN: Thursday, August 29, 2024 WHERE: Woburn Common 6:30 PM-Name Signing 7:15 PM-Event Begins Justin’s Voice in cooperation with the Mayor’s Coalition against Substance Use Disorder.

On Thursday August 29, from 6:30pm - 7:10pm, the Becca Schmill Foundation will be co-hosting Needham's 3rd annual observance of International Overdose Awareness Day. Needham’s observance will include speakers, a memorial flag display, resource tables and harm reduction materials to support community members of all ages. Everyone in attendance will have the opportunity to learn how to reverse an overdose with Naloxone. The event is free and open to the public. All are welcome.

In honor of International Overdose Awareness Day our annual butterfly release ceremony will be held on Friday 8/30/24. Each attendee will receive a live butterfly to set free or a wildflower seed paper. Please rsvp to the Facebook event or email [email protected] so we know how many butterflies are needed. All are welcome. International Overdose Awareness Day is a global event held each year and aims to raise awareness in the community of overdose and reduce the stigma of a drug-related death.

A community event remembering all those that have passed away in the Mass and Cass community in the past year. Join us for activities centered around healing and discussions about grief, change and remembrance.

We will be hosting a vigil with open testimonials and an invoking of names by candlelight. We will have grief support and harm reduction resources available. The entire month of August we will be inviting our community to decorate a purple heart in commemoration of a loved one lost to accidental overdose which will be laminated and displayed in the town commons.

Join us at Veteran's Park as we gather to remember loved ones lost. Flameless taper candles will be provided.

August 31st is the world's largest annual campaign to end overdose, remember those we have lost to an overdose, acknowledge the grief of the family and friends left behind, and renew our commitment to end overdose and related harms.

We’ll be participating in the 9th Annual Sunrise Vigil at Scituate Lighthouse in participation with South Shore Peer Recovery to mourn and remember loved ones lost to overdoses, and to acknowledge first responders, treatment providers, community groups, and recovery advocates. Sunrise is at 6:08am. Come one, come all.

Massachusetts' Young People in Recovery & A New Way Peer Recovery Center are hosting an Overdose Awareness Vigil at noon on August 31, Overdose Awareness Day. This ceremony of remembrance will include various speakers who have been directly affected by substance overdose. All are welcome to join our community as we honor and remember the loved ones we have lost.

AUG 31st Come honor those who’ve fallen from overdose
12-1pm with a candlelight vigil. Hope to see you there 

Holbrook Cares would like to formally invite you to join us and our community for our 10th Anniversary while we hold an overdose vigil by candlelight. It would be a great opportunity to show support and express compassion at our gathering. This special time where friends and families will remember their loved ones and light up the sky for those lost to addiction. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEND A PICTURE OF YOUR LOVED ONE TO BE INCLUDED IN THIS YEAR’S VIDEO, PLEASE SEND PHOTO TO US BEFORE AUGUST 15 AT [email protected]

We will have a brief moment of silence, a ceremony of Remembrance and then we will head to the sea wall and light our luminaries

Join Malden Overcoming Addiction and The Bridge Recovery Center as we honor all those who have lost their battle with substance use disorder. Our vigil will begin at Malden High School followed by a candlelight walk to City Hall with a moment if silence under the walkway which will be illuminated purple for this day of reflection.

Join us as we remember the 72 Barnstable County lives we have lost, those struggling, and those in recovery. Sharing of photos and words of remembrance are welcome. Wear purple in support. Information tables at event.

Overdose Awareness Vigil

INTERNATIONAL OVERDOSE AWARENESS DAY
SATURDAY, 31 AUGUST 2024 from 6-8 PM
Please join us for a remembrance ceremony in honor of the lives lost to overdose.

6 PM - Memorials: Community invited to share loved one’s name and/or brief story
6:20 PM - Spiritual Leader Joni Carron
6:30 - March to GB LOGO on Main
7 PM - Candle lighting and vigil

This is an event to remember those gone to soon from overdoses. Memorials give our community a way to honor those who have tragically lost their lives, share stores , and bring people together. Luminary bags will be available for community members to decorate and write special messages. Community members will be invited to share their own stories and memories of loved ones who have overdosed. 2, 125 purple flags will be planted on the Belchertown Common to represent those in Massachusetts who have lost their lives to the opioid epidemic in the last decade.

Please join us for a remembrance ceremony in honor of the lives lost to overdose.

Join us for our 3rd annual Overdose Awareness Day Memorial Service to comfort those who have lost loved ones to overdose - followed by a procession to City Hall for a Raising of the Recovery Flag with Mayor Marchetti - and process to Park Square for a candlelight vigil and reading of names of those lost to overdose

Join the Chelmsford Health Department's Annual Candlelight Vigil for International Overdose Awareness Day on Saturday, August 31, 2024. Signing of names of loved ones lost will begin at 6:30 pm and event begins at 7:00 pm. Under the stars, we'll light candles to remember those lost to overdose and show support for those struggling with addiction.

Join us for an event to remember those lost to overdose, and to celebrate hope in recovery. There will be a dove release, speakers on loss, hope and recovery, musical performers and lantern decorating and lighting for those we have lost. Provider tables ready to take referral information and give out information starting at 4:30-7

Living In Recovery invites community members to participate in the 3rd annual Overdose Awareness Day Memorial Service in Pittsfield. The service will be followed by a procession to Park Square for a candlelight vigil and a reading of names of those lost to overdose. Names can be sent to Living in Recovery via their email at [email protected].

Join us to remember and honor loved ones we’ve lost to overdose.

International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD) is observed each August 31. On this day, communities worldwide come together to reduce overdose stigma, increase understanding and awareness, remember those who died of overdose, and prevent drug-related harm.

For IOAD, SAFE will host a community vigil from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Wrentham Town Common. Vigil attendees are encouraged to bring pictures of the loved ones they are honoring.

Interfaith Night of Remembrance including readings, a speaker, lighting of memorial candles and rolling of the bells.

Candlelight vigil.

At 8:00 PM on 8/31/24 we are asking all communities to light their homes, business, programs, and community spaces with purple lights/bulbs and post LIVE or post a picture to social media (locally) #WMALightsItPurpleOverdoseAwareness2024 and Internationally to #TogetherWeCan, #EndOverdose, #IOAD2024, followed by a moment of silence in the region to honor the memory of those we have lost.