INSPIRE's 3rd Annual Overdose Awareness Event

ELLSWORTH -- At Knowlton Park in Ellsworth, Healthy Acadia's INSPIRE Recovery Center held their 3rd annual Overdose Awareness Day Event.

The event featured guest speakers, a memory board, and 723 butterflies, representing the lives lost to drug overdoses last year.

INSPIRE, Maine Family Planning, and all others who attended spent the evening taking time to reflect upon friends, family, and loved ones not here today.

HIt's really easy to just say, 'Oh you know it was someone who was addicted to substances, and you know, whatever,'" said INSPIRE Recovery Center Manager Beth Alteri. "But, it was a human being. It was a person, it was a life, and it was a life that was loved." ome

"It's really a day for the community to come together, to think about the lives that they not only lost last year, but their loved ones that they lost maybe even ten years ago," said INSPIRE Recovery Center Activities Coordinator Amber Kennedy.

"For there to be so many people sharing such a collective theme in how our lives go, and also how our lives end. Something needs to be done," said Maine Family Planning Reproductive Empowerment Project Coordinator K.J. Johnson.

Although the night was spent in reflection, those in attendance walked away somber, but hopeful for a better future.