Community members are invited to walk in downtown Orillia this Friday in recognition of International Overdose Awareness Day.
Now in its fourth year locally, the annual walk was started by Johanne Logue, who lost her son, Shawn, to opioid poisoning in April 2020.
“I believe as soon as you stop speaking about your loved one, or stop sharing their story, that's when they're really gone, so I'm keeping Shawn's memory alive and everybody else that we've lost,” Logue told Village Media.
“When I do something like this, I kind of feel that I'm bringing people out to (let them know) you're not alone – there’s many of us that suffer from this," she added.
Community members and city officials will meet in the Orillia Public Library parking lot, next to the Opera House, at 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 30 before walking down to Couchiching Beach Park to chat and share pizza.
Logue plans make the walk "more personal" than in years past, and will ask attendees to speak the names of the people they have lost to drug overdoses in their lives.
“I just want to get a little bit more personal, where we can touch base with each other, rather than just walking down the street and then going our separate ways,” she said. “The numbers are growing. It's really sad when I see larger numbers, but unfortunately, that's what's happening.”
With the opioid crisis continuing in Orillia and beyond, Logue has seen its impacts well beyond the loss of her son, Shawn.
She spoke against the provincial government’s recent move to ban new safe consumption sites, worrying “that more people are going to pass because of that.”
“Nearly Shawn's whole group of friends that he hung out with at a younger age are gone. They're nearly all gone,” Logue said. “There's been three, four or five this year alone, since the last walk, that have passed because of fentanyl overdose.”
It's why this event is so important, she noted.
“We’ve got to let people know and be aware of what's happening, and we’ve got to try to stop the stigma.”
