XENIA — Hope Spot is hosting a candlelight vigil at Arise Café in Xenia for those who died from drug overdoses in recent years. Hope Spot’s mission is to help people overcome addiction and the stigma behind it, according to its founder, Amy Pulver.
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“There’s so many people who we’ve lost in our community to overdose who were incredible individuals who contributed but they struggled with a disease,” Pulver said.
Pulver told News Center 7′s Malik Patterson that she lost her husband, Brandon Pulver to an overdose and she started Hope Spot in order to help people battling addiction.
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According to several health departments in the Miami Valley, there have been more than 250 overdose deaths in Montgomery, Miami, Clark, and Green County combined.
There have been 196 preliminary overdose deaths om Montgomery and 26 in Greene. In order to combat this issue, Green County is giving out Narcan, a medicine that reverses an opioid overdose.
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“Through our Project Dawn here at Greene County Public Health since January we have given out over 33 hundred boxes and each box has 2 doses,” Alayna Romer, a spokesperson for Greene County Public Health, said.
You can get your two free boxes of Narcan here.
“Addiction is prevalent throughout everyone’s lives; you may not know someone immediately. But anyone can be struggling at any point in time, so it’s just good to have on hand and add to your first aid kit,” Romer said.