People lost to overdoses remembered
About 50 people attended the Wednesday, Aug. 31 event for International Overdose Awareness Day planned by the Butler County Opioid Overdose Coalition at Grace Community Wellness Center of Glade Run Lutheran Services in the former Grace @ Calvary Church at 123 E. Diamond St. across from Diamond Park, to hear coalition members and others talk about loved ones who have died from overdose.
The evening started with the ringing of a bell 66 times, to symbolize the 66 people who died of drug overdoses in Butler County in 2021. Coalition figures show there have been 581 overdose deaths in Butler County since 2011; 68.2% were male, 31.8% female. Ninety-eight percent of those who died were white, 2% were Black.
There have been 32 deaths related to drug overdose this year in Butler County.
The coalition is made up of first responders, police and sheriff’s deputies, drug and alcohol treatment providers and representatives from Butler County Community College and Slippery Rock University and Lisa Gill, a prevention specialist with the Butler County Human Services Drug and Alcohol programs.
Donna McKissick, of Butler, lost her daughter, Ashley McKissick, to overdose in 2018. McKissick said that while her daughter struggled with addiction for years, she remembers her as the full person she was, rather than by the way she died.
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