By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News
Each year, Overdose Awareness Day is honored on Aug. 30. In the Castle Country, Utah State University Extension-HEART hosts a yearly ‘A light to Remember’ lantern tribute to remember those lost to overdose.
Dr. Ashley Yaugher from HEART joined the KOAL newsroom to preview the event and discuss what the event holds in store for attendees.
Opening our discussion, Yaugher explained the event,” It’s a really lovely event that’s completely free and open to the public with a lantern tribute to recognize those that we’ve lost and also talk about how to prevent overdose and recognize people in recovery and provide support and resources for everybody.”
To encourage attendance, free meals and swag will be provided to the first 150 attendees. “We’ll have free meals thanks to the Southeast Utah Health Department and Castle View Hospital, and some drinks for everyone, too, thanks to the CARE Coalition. So come on down. Dinner’s on us that night. We don’t want anybody to leave hungry. We’re going to kick off and welcome everybody and recognize our loved ones that we’ve lost without stigma and shame.”
Also, as a part of the event, attendees will be able to undergo Naloxone training: “Naloxone is one of the biggest, I think, things that we have in this fight against opioid overdose deaths. And it’s free training. Everybody who does the training will get a free Naloxone kit, and it temporarily reverses an opioid overdose until you can get emergency services there. So that’s a great one that we have that we’re going to be offering at the event for those who haven’t had a chance to have their Naloxone training before.”
Closing out the evening will be a luminary ceremony. Dr. Yaugher explained what this ceremony means to her,” This is our fourth annual event, and so I think people find some connection in that loss. Still, it’s also a difficult time, right, to recognize that we’ve lost so many people in our southeast Utah area … I think it’s nice for everyone to be able to come together and recognize together that you’re not alone in this loss, but it’s still a difficult loss, and these are our family, our friends, our loved ones, our neighbors that we’re losing. So I think coming together and just recognizing that with, again, without the stigma, without the shame, and just being in one place altogether.”
In addition to the training and ceremony, a plethora of other resources and groups will be present at the event: “There’s going to be so many amazing resources there on site. We’ll have everybody there that we’ve already mentioned, as well as Step One Service, our prevention coalitions like the OneDirection Coalition, Life Balance Recovery, the HOPE Squad and USARA.”
Yaugher added,” Just a lot of people who care about our community come out to these events and get to know us individually, so that when you need the resources, you know where to turn. And there are so many resources for people, but it’s just being aware of those that help you the most when you need them.”
Closing our conversation, Dr. Yaugher stated,” I think the biggest thing is to join us, come see everybody out there. I couldn’t possibly name everyone that’s coming, but we look forward to seeing you all and remembering those who’ve lost with hope for no overdoses in the future.”
USU Extension-HEART’s ‘A light to Remember’ Overdose Awareness Day event will be held on Saturday, Aug. 30, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Huntington Lake State Park. More information is available online here.