Hannah Feuer ©️ Seven Days
Rally in honor of International Overdose Awareness Day
About 50 people gathered at City Hall Park in Burlington on Thursday to remember those who died from substance use.
It’s the third year that Team Sharing, a group of local parents who have lost children to overdoses, has organized the event. Family members, advocates and politicians spoke behind a display of photographs of those lost.
The event was held even as Burlington endures another reported spike in overdoses. The Burlington Police Department fielded 118 calls about possible overdoses between July 15 and August 15. That's the highest number of overdose calls the department has ever recorded in a single month — nearly double the previous record of 61 calls in June 2023.
Prior to the event, Seven Days asked Police Chief Jon Murad about the increase. Murad responded in an email that it could be due partly to increased public scrutiny surrounding open-air drug use at a cluster of downtown hot spots: Fletcher Free Library, the Marketplace Parking Garage, and the intersection of South Winooski Avenue and Buell Street.
None of the speakers mentioned the spike, which has not been previously reported.
But Kimberly Blake, leader of Team Sharing, noted that the group is a club that is, unfortunately, recruiting new members.
The event was to mark International Overdose Awareness Day, which is Saturday, August 31. Speakers in the park included Dawn Tatro, cofounder with her husband, Greg, of the Johnson recovery center Jenna’s Promise, named for the daughter they lost. Dawn Tatro was recently named a CNN Hero for her work with Jenna's Promise, which helps women recover from substance use.
Chelsea Martin spoke through tears about losing her brother to a heroin overdose at age 31.
Still, some found reason to hope. Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak told the crowd that an overdose-prevention site will be open in Burlington by next year's event. The center will provide a place for people to use illegal drugs under supervision, with staff on hand to intervene if somebody overdoses.
In June, the state legislature cleared the way for a site by overriding Gov. Phil Scott’s veto of a bill that authorizes one.
“This cannot be understated: Lives will be saved when the doors open of an overdose-prevention center here in Burlington,” Mulvaney-Stanak said, to cheers and applause. “I’m going to say it again, because there are naysayers still: Lives will be saved.
Rep. Taylor Small (P/D-Winooski) spoke about the years of advocacy in Montpelier that contributed to the overdose-prevention site's eventual approval.
Blake, too, brought up the planned site. “It is nice to have something to celebrate,” Blake told the crowd after Mulvaney-Stanak's speech.
Her son Sean died in 2017 at age 27, after overdosing just a few blocks from City Hall Park. Had an overdose-prevention site existed when he was alive, Blake said, Sean would have used it.
Derek Brouwer contributed reporting.
Correction, September 2, 2024: Jon Murad's first name was misspelled in a previous version of this story.