nothin On Overdose Awareness Day, A Phoenix Rises | New Haven Independent

On Overdose Awareness Day, A Phoenix Rises

Maya McFadden Photo

Fiona Firine, Lisa Deane, Isabella Firine with “Rising Unity” sculpture.

A large phoenix was spotted on the New Haven Green Tuesday afternoon. Dozens crowed around its flexed wings as its feathers blew in the warm breeze.

As New Haveners got closer to the burly bird they saw that it was made of metal. They saw that its feathers were made up of 90 slips of paper that each read the name of a drug overdose victim.

The phoenix sculpture sat in the middle of an Overdose Awareness Day event that took place all afternoon on the Green. The city’s health department partnered with the Quinnipiack Valley Health District (QVHD) to bring dozens of local substance abuse and harm reduction service providers together to promote forms of help for people struggling with addiction.

For the six hours that the event lasted on the Green Tuesday, overdose victims and active drug users were recognized and given a helping hand.

Residents picked up fentanyl strips and kits of naloxone, aka Narcan, an emergency medication that reverses opioid overdoses. They were connected with community resources offering substance abuse consulting, medical support, and educational materials about drug addiction.

Libby Makela Johnson.

Libby Makela Johnson’s eyes fixated on one name on the the metal phoenix. That name was of her daughter Maija Elizabeth Johnson, who died of an overdose at 22 years old.

Johnson lives in Fair Haven. She described seeing her daughter’s name on the phoenix as hard but beautiful.” Maija overdosed on Sept. 25, 2019 while using heroin that she did not know was laced with fentanyl. Her daughter had relapsed in the past but Johnson thought her daughter had stopped using.

Maija went to Wilbur Cross High School and was brilliant” and funny,” her mom said Tuesday. Even when I was mad at her, she made me laugh.”

Johnson has since been volunteering with the nonprofit For Cameron. Since losing her daughter, Johnson doesn’t leave her home without a Narcan kit to help anyone in the throes of an overdose.

Maija’s signature was joined by the signatures of dozens of other lost lives, including Joseph Deane and Cameron Herr, whose moms were also at the Tuesday event.

Lisa Deane, founder of the nonprofit Demand Zero, gathered the sculpture committee that included For Cameron founders Fiona and Isabella Firine.

Deane lost her 23-year-old son Joesph in 2018. The committee, made up of families who have lost loved ones from overdoses, came up with the Rising Unity” phoenix sculpture in part from Isabella Firine’s idea of memorializing the victims through their signatures. The group decided on a phoenix because of its symbolism of breaking free,” forgiveness, and the cycle of transformation, Deane said.

The Atelier Que-designed sculpture will be displayed at New Haven’s City Hall for the month of September and then will travel throughout the state.

Fiona and Isabella Firine lost 27-year-old Cameron Herr in 2018. Isabella, Cameron’s sister, always loved receiving holiday cards from her older brother, stamped with his signature. The signatures make them real,” she said.

Kassandra Napoleon and crisis counselor Germano Kimbro distribute information at the event about the Ministerial Health Fellowship.

The Tuesday event also aimed to education their families and community members. We want to make Narcan a tool that everyone has in their home first aid safety kits,” said Kara Sepulveda, project coordinator of ConneCT Without Stigma.

Twenty provider tents decorated the Green for the event. The city passed along a message to its residents to eliminate the stigma around drug use and overdoses deaths, said Health Director Maritza Bond.

We need to talk about it in order to respond to it,” Sepulveda said. We can educate drug users all day about but they can’t Narcan themselves. We all need to be educated.”

Sepulveda reported that 30 overdoses take place a week in the Greater New Haven area.

Sex Workers and Allies Network (SWAN) founder and Executive Director Beatrice Codianni and other SWAN members wore purple shirts with the face of Jason Crowell on the back. Crowell was SWAN’s outreach director. He died of an overdose on July 19.

Under the photo of Crowell read his motto, Never Use Alone.” He would say that to every person he helped at SWAN.

SWAN and city staff at Tuesday event.

As at SWAN’s pop-up NARCAN training and distribution events in the past, the team distributed Narcan kits and fentanyl test strips Tuesday.

The fentanyl test strips help drug users make informed decisions” by testing drugs they obtain to see what they contain, said Codianni.

Look around today. We want to tell everyone that there’s a whole community that cares about them,” Codianni added while talking about the Tuesday event.

SWAN distributed 45 nasal Narcan spray kits Tuesday. SWAN outreach worker Sally Graveline trained people on what an overdose looks like and how to use to spray.

As a band’s rendition of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues” played from the stage, community members walked from table to table learning about local service providers.

A large purple quilt blew in the wind stitched with the faces and names of 36 overdose victims, each with their own personalized patch. Alongside names of victims read titles: brother, nephew, cousin, son, husband, grandson, and mother.

Overdose victims quilt.

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