“This is still a public health crisis.”
Originally published by The Providence Eye, a publication partner of Ocean State Stories.
PROVIDENCE — “Hi sweetheart, would you like some free Narcan?”
Three smiling faces stood outside the Valley Street Price Rite. They wore black shirts with a big purple heart and a ribbon that read: “One Big Family United In Hope,” and on the back of the shirt, in six different languages, “End Overdose RI.” They offered each new stranger walking their dogs or stuck in traffic a drug that can save a life during an overdose.
Seventy stations just like this appeared around the state to hand out Naloxone, sold under the brand name Narcan, for free one day last week in honor of International Overdose Awareness Day. In Providence, 16 sites were set up to give away free harm reduction resources, a new recovery center opened near North Main and over 100 people attended a vigil to honor those community members lost to overdoses.
The day’s events were spearheaded by the state’s largest harm reduction organization Project Weber/RENEW, but the scale of the outreach reflects the state’s growing coalition to prevent fatal overdoses. And this collaborative approach seems to be working. Earlier this summer, the state announced overdose deaths are down 25% since 2022.
“This is still a public health crisis,” says Ashley Perry, Weber/RENEW’s deputy director who helped plan the day’s events. According to the Rhode Island Department of Health, 329 people died from overdoses in 2024. “We finally have seen a reduction in fatal overdoses due to so much of the peer workforce out here in Rhode Island, boots on the ground, who are out here doing street outreach day in and day out, getting to the people who need their services the most,” said Perry.
Sixty-five percent of Weber/RENEW’s staff have struggled with substance abuse, incarceration or homelessness, including Perry. This means the workforce behind the country’s first state-sanctioned overdose prevention center, two offices and four mobile stations that serve nine cities are often people who are in recovery themselves.
“We really, truly believe that people closest to solving the problems are people closest to the problems,” says Perry, who says Project Weber/RENEW works with about 6,000 clients each year. The day’s events were held in partnership with at least 16 organizations and over a dozen sponsors. “This is one thing a year that I think we all really agree about and come together for. So it really is a beautiful thing.”
The distribution team near Price Rite tried to get more neighbors involved in fighting overdoses by empowering them with Narcan, a nasal spray version of Naloxone that is available without a prescription. As an opioid antagonist, Narcan blocks the effects of opioids such as heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine and morphine. Within a couple of minutes, a simple spray of Narcan up a nose can restore regular breathing in someone whose breath slowed or completely stopped due to an overdose.
“We want them to know that it’s super easy to use, that you don’t need to be using drugs to benefit from having it on you,” says Izzy Irizarry, a community organizer with Central Providence Unidos. “People overdose in public all the time in Providence.”
When Irizarry worked at Project Weber/RENEW as a case manager, they would use Narcan while waiting for rescue to respond to an overdose. They recalled one of hundreds of stories where Narcan saved someone’s life: “One second, somebody that you’re working with just seems kind of sleepy, and then the next second you walk back in the room and they’re blue.” The individual in this case survived the overdose and avoided serious brain damage. By the time rescue arrived around 10 minutes later, he was walking and talking again. “It’s precious minutes that feel like hours if you don’t have this very easy to use, very effective, totally free [tool].”
For RICARES staff sharing the table with Irizarry, the first step to supporting recovery involves reducing the stigma around the topic.
“Harm reduction is more than just the opioid reversal,” says Alex Gautieri, senior recovery policy advocate at RICARES. “There are safer use kits. There’s the fentanyl test strips that people can use. So like testing your drugs for if there are other substances in it that you’re not trying to use, using safer cleaner supplies as harm reduction can help keep you safe and alive.”
As part of the day’s events, the RISE Resource Recovery Center opened at the Family Services of Rhode Island office at 9 Pleasant Street. The center joins other spots, like Weber Renew’s office in South Providence and Anchor Recovery on Reservoir Avenue, where the community can access free harm reduction materials and connect with staff trained to meet their needs.
“They can start small, like something as small as attending my peer groups. Or if they’re looking to go into treatment, then maybe meeting with the clinician or a nurse for medication management,” says Kamaria Ellis, a certified peer recovery specialist with FSRI. “Sometimes the people that I meet are not always looking for substance use treatment. Recovery to us can mean pretty much anything.”
Open Monday to Thursday from 3-5 p.m., the center is a place for everyone to come in, even if someone is unsure if they want support.
“Recovery is possible, and that’s why we work here,” says Emily Matthews, the department director for FSRI’s Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic.
A crowd holds candles and sings to honor loved ones lost to overdose. Photo by Eric Halvarson.
To end the day’s events, Project Weber/RENEW staff hosted a vigil at Burnside Park with clients and supportive members of the community. After sharing burgers over purple tablecloths, the crowd gathered around a fountain while holding candles. Some wore t-shirts with people’s pictures on them that read “In Loving Memory.” Behind a podium covered in blue and purple flowers, a speaker took more than 20 minutes to read the names of people who were killed by overdoses, some starting with the titles of “grandpa,” “auntie” or “mama.”
“I’m here mourning my own brother-in-law,” says Mandy Roman, Project Weber/RENEW’s director of communications and development who spent the day handing out Narcan with other members of her family. “We do this work carrying that grief and carrying that loss, knowing that we can help someone else. They’re with us in this work, and we do it for them.”
This story was created in partnership with Journalism New England. The writers are all Providence Eye Community News Fellows and their bios are listed here.
