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4th Lights of Change set in Salem Sunday

SALEM — Family members of those who lost their battle with drugs plan to shine a light on overdose prevention while remembering their loved ones during an event Sunday night at Waterworth Memorial Park.

The Fourth Annual Lights of Change will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. organized by OhioCAN Change Addiction Now and coincides with Columbiana County Overdose Awareness Day. The event will take place at pavilion #9 off of Superior with several guest speakers and the traditional lighting of the candles in memory of people lost to overdoses.

“I’m just trying to get the word out there so we stop losing an entire generation of people. Our community needs to come together,” Salem resident Brenda Hamilton said.

Hamilton serves as Columbiana County coordinator and president of OhioCAN Change Addiction Now, the non-profit group that’s giving family members affected by drug addiction a voice and trying to bring attention to the help that’s out there.

Some of the speakers have been directly affected, such as Kimmie Spenser and Veronica Ross, who both lost children to drug overdoses. Other speakers will include Aaron Byers regarding self-medicating, Shirley Dopp and woman from the Eastern Ohio Correction Center facility in Lisbon, Chris Carter of Arrow Passage Recovery, Tom Fritz of Celebrate Recovery at Damascus Friends Church, Salem Police Chief J.T. Panezott and Columbiana County Drug Task Force Director Lt. Brian McLaughlin of the Sheriff’s Office.

A representative of Family Recovery Center will talk about Project DAWN, a community-based overdose education and Naloxone distribution program new to Columbiana County. Naloxone is known as the opioid overdose reversal drug and Hamilton said she’s excited that the program is coming to the area.

“Our event Sunday night is an opportunity to bring the family voice to addiction and recovery as we embrace, educate and empower all those lives who have been impacted by substance use disorder,” Hamilton wrote in a press release about Lights of Change.

She feels for families who stay hidden due to the stigma associated with drug addiction.

She said this is a chance for families to come together and share stories of their loved ones and their disease of addiction, shame free and stigma free.

The group OhioCAN started out in the Salem area four years ago with the first Steps of Change event and now there are 30 counties involved throughout Ohio with families impacted by drugs advocating for treatment in lieu of conviction, the importance of an addiction specialist when medication is needed and demanding an increase in detox and treatment availability and the availability of the overdose reversal drug Narcan in every town, according to the press release.

To learn more, visit the OhioCAN website at www.changeaddictionnow.org or on Facebook at Ohio CAN Columbiana County.

mgreier@salemnews.net

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