LYNNFIELD — Nearly 500 people flooded the Town Common Sunday night at A Healthy Lynnfield’s and the Think of Michael Foundation’s annual Night of Hope to celebrate National Recovery Month, remember loved ones lost to addiction, and show support for those struggling with substance use disorder.
“This is a night about love and support and I just love the way this community comes together to support one another,” said Think of Michael President Carmela Dalton.
The night began at Lynnfield Middle School where participants — most of them wearing purple Night of Hope T-shirts — solemnly proceeded to the Town Common for a speaking program. The trees and benches were decorated with purple bows and ribbons and the perimeter was lined with hundreds of purple flags (purple is the color of National Recovery Month). The Meeting House was illuminated with purple lights surrounding a projection of a large National Recovery Month ribbon.
Town Administrator Rob Dolan opened the program, saying “tonight we bring awareness of issues of addiction and mental health and we unify as a community to support individuals and families confronting the greatest health issue in the history of our nation.”
Select Board Chair Phil Crawford said that substance use disorder knows no community, economic, or educational boundaries.
“We all know someone, a family member, a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor impacted by substance misuse or mental health issues,” he said. “We call this evening ‘A Night of Hope’ as a way to demonstrate that Lynnfield as a community shares compassion with and support for individuals and families impacted by mental health and substance use disorders.”
Select Board member Dick Dalton, who founded Think of Michael with his wife Carmela, thanked the Lynnfield community for the love and support they have given the Dalton family over the last four years since their son, Michael, died of an accidental overdose while in recovery.
“Tonight, hopefully, we can provide encouragement to those individuals and families dealing with this disease,” Dick Dalton said. “As my wife so often says… if we can just spare one family from the heartbreak we’ve endured, that will be a fitting tribute to our son.”
Dalton urged those in attendance to think about “how you and I and all of us address all sorts of addictions and that we can be open and honest and seek help when it’s necessary. The foundation is here to help each and every one of you who thinks they may need that help.”
The program included powerful remarks from two people who shared their personal recovery stories.
Caitlin Gillespie, a recovery coach supervisor at North Suffolk Mental Health Association, has been in recovery for four years. She recalled a time six years ago when she was homeless and living on the streets of Boston, sleeping in a tunnel under the Zakim Bridge and engaging in “criminal activity” to support her habit.
“Not for lack of trying because I had tried to get clean many times,” she said “I had no hope.”
She was arrested only to learn she was pregnant (with daughter Harper). It changed her life.
“If it wasn’t for this little girl I don’t know if I could say I’d be here tonight. My life has now become, instead of being a hopeless, homeless IV-drug user, I’m now someone who can help people,” Gillespie said.
Gillespie said there’s no recipe for who is going to become an addict. She graduated at the top of her high school class and graduated from UMass Amherst.
“But that didn’t matter. I ended up that homeless girl in Boston,” she said. “It felt like there was no hope for a long time. But I am here to tell you there is hope.”
Matt Ganem, CEO of Aftermath Addiction Center in Wakefield, has been in recovery for 16 years. He said young people need to avoid being followers.
“When I speak at schools, I try to tell the kids to be leaders, not followers because when I was a kid I followed my group from sports right to homelessness and IV heroin use,” he said. “I didn’t have the courage to say no. Having all the kids who are in school here to hear a little bit of hope, that’s huge.”
Several students dressed in their team uniforms as a sign of solidarity. One of them was Lucas Cook, who walked with the LHS boys hockey team wearing his uncle Michael Dalton’s number 17.
“Tonight is all about the fact that there are a lot of good people in this community coming together for a good reason,” Cook said.
A Healthy Lynnfield Youth Council leaders Evyenia Georges and Drew von Jako also shared their thoughts.
“Finding and maintaining hope is not always easy,” said Georges. “We must create a community of hope to support each other on our individual journeys.”
“People do not have an addiction because they want to; they have lost all hope and end up with this terrible disease,” von Jako said. “I now ask you to light your (purple) votives, may the candles light our way and honor the lives lost and provide hope for those who are still in darkness.”
Anne Marie Tobin can be reached at [email protected].
