On Sunday, people around the world will recognize International Overdose Awareness Day.
For the past six years, people have been gathering along the Big Sioux River in Sioux Falls to honor loved ones and end the stigma surrounding substance use disorder. Emily’s Hope founder Angela Kennecke and two other moms who lost children to overdose started the tradition.
“I think it’s so meaningful to be able to really recognize those we have lost,” said Angela Kennecke, founder and CEO of Emily’s Hope. “They were truly our sons, our daughters, our brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles. These were people who were loved and who may or may not have suffered from substance use disorder, but they mattered.”
Despite overdose numbers dropping across the U.S., awareness is important to ensure the numbers continue to decrease.
“It’s dropped by a higher percentage around the rest of the nation by about 25%, but only by about 2% in South Dakota. We were one of the states that had an increase up until recently. So, they’ve just started to drop in South Dakota, the number of overdoses. But yet we still had 46 deaths in Minnehaha and Lincoln counties in the last 18 months,” said Kennecke.
On Sunday, an overdose survivor, a family who lost someone to an overdose and others will share their stories below the Arc of Dreams.