New location announced plus recovery speaker
EASTON – The third annual Festival of Hope is set for August 31, 2023 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Anchor Church in Easton and includes the seventh year kick-off for Talbot Goes Purple.
The festival is a partnership between Talbot Goes Purple, Mid-Shore Restoring Hope in Women and Christ Church of Easton and coincides with international overdose awareness day. The event celebrates the hope that recovery is possible for anyone still struggling, and honors those lost from substance use disorder.
This year’s festival again includes free food; live music with Alive @Five; family fun including a dunking booth with Talbot County Sheriff Joe Gamble, bounce house, face painting, games and prizes; activities with the Talbot County Sheriff’s Office including K-9 demonstrations; resource tables; and a memorial for those lost. New this year is speaker Sam Davis, a Richmond-based interventionist who is in recovery from substance use disorder.
Davis will start speaking at 7:30 p.m., with the overdose memorial directly after.
“We’re glad to have Sam Davis come to our festival this year with his strong message of recovery and family support,” said Sherry Collier, founder of Mid-Shore Restoring Hope in Women. Collier has organized overdose awareness day events in Easton since 2017. Her non-profit supports women in need of recovery services. “Our organization helps place women into recovery houses, and we often see the effect that addiction has on families. Davis’ work as an interventionist is important, especially for family members to hear that help is available.”
Drug overdose deaths hit a record high of 109,680 in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Maryland, however, reduced fatalities by about 7% from 2021 to 2022. And in Talbot County, fatal overdoses declined 15% between September 2021 and September 2021. Still, the opioid epidemic continues with new challenges, including an influx of the horse tranquilizer, xylazine. Also known as tranq, xylazine is a non-opioid that is mixed into illicit street drugs, particularly the potent synthetic opioid, fentanyl.
The prevalence of xylazine is on the rise – with the sedative present in almost 11% of all fentanyl deaths in June 2022, almost a four-fold increase from 2019. In Maryland, however, xylazine was present in about a quarter of all fentanyl overdose deaths from January 2021 to June 2022. That’s more than twice the national rate. Xylazine has not yet shown up in Talbot County, said Gamble. Still, 13 people in the county died of overdoses in the 12 months ending in Jan. 2023.
“While we have had some reduction in overdoses and related deaths, this epidemic continues,” Gamble said. “We have to continue educating young people about the realities of substance use. And we hope everyone comes out to the festival to celebrate the hope and power of recovery, but most important we want them to: Get the Facts, Get Involved and Get Talking.”
Bruce Strazza, a local recovery advocate and Alive @5 worship leader at Christ Church, has served on the Mid-Shore opioid task force and has twice spoken for the Lt. Governor of Maryland. He also serves as an active member with Talbot Goes Purple and a resource for Gamble.
“Entering 2023 I was hopeful for a better year, and while the numbers are down the risks are up,” said Strazza. “We thought fentanyl was bad – xylazine is worse. This could prove to be the most important year for awareness on record. We have to inform people of the risks of even trying opioids and other drugs even one time.”
Talbot Goes Purple is an awareness and educational prevention program that empowers our youth and our community to ‘Go Purple’ as a sign of taking a stand against substance abuse. The initiative includes purple clubs in our middle and high schools, through which students learn they do not need drugs or alcohol to meet life’s challenges.
For more information on festival sponsorships or resource tables, or you’d like to include someone in the memorial, email talbotgoespurple@gmail.com.
The community can again display purple lights and gear starting Sept. 1 and throughout the month as a show of taking a stand against substance abuse. More information is available at www.talbotgoespurple.org. Find TGP on Facebook @TalbotGoesPurple.
Talbot Goes Purple is in partnership with Talbot County Public Schools, Saints Peter and Paul Schools, and Mid-Shore Community Foundation. Generous support for the festival this year includes: BrightView Health, Chesapeake Parties, Easton Utilities, Holy Trinity Church of Oxford, Pepsi Bottling Ventures, Preston Automotive Group, Shore United Bank and VFW Post 5118.
Talbot Goes Purple is a component fund of the Mid-Shore Community Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization – donations to which are tax deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law.
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