Westwood’s Veterans Park was awash in a sea of portraits on Saturday afternoon, Aug, 22. Smiling, youthful faces printed on posters lined the walkways around the bandstand. Among them, musicians, athletes, writers and dancers. Sons, daughters, sisters and brothers. People who loved, and who were loved in return.
Each of the portraits represented a young life cut short due to addiction.
Known as the Black Poster Project, this display of silent memorials has been traveling around northern New Jersey during August—Overdose Awareness Month—to make a powerful statement about the dangers of opioid abuse. Beyond that, it seeks to lessen the stigma and shame surrounding addiction—factors that prevent many from seeking help.
The event is a collaboration between Alumni In Recovery (AinR)—a Bergen-based non-profit composed of young adults living in recovery from addiction, who now volunteer their time at events like these—and the Center for Alcohol and Drug Resources.
“People are asked to come and look at each one—look at their faces, look into their eyes. They will speak back,” Alumni in Recovery says on its website. “The presence of these lost loved ones is used as a stark reminder of the devastation caused by addiction.”
Among the portraits were several sibling pairs, and in one tragic case, five siblings from the same family. The posters broke from alphabetical order to keep a couple next to each other. They would have been 25 this year.
Throughout the afternoon many bereaved parents visited the park to see the posters of their children.
In 2018 drug deaths in America fell for the first time in 25 years, only to rebound in a big way. The year 2019 saw a record 72,000 Americans die from drug overdoses, representing an increase of 5 percent, according to data from the CDC. Of those, 3,100 were from New Jersey.
The uncertainty and isolation brought on by the coronavirus pandemic have compounded the issue. Statewide, in the first five months of 2020 drug overdoses were up 20% from the same time period last year. There were 1,339 suspected drug overdose deaths in the state from Jan. 1 through May 31.
Two moms are behind the Black Poster Project. Dee Gillen of Haworth lost her son Scott to a heroin/fentanyl overdose in 2015. Sheryl Cashin, of Fair Lawn, lost her son Eric in 2018.
Last year Gillen was set to give a presentation in Piermont, N.Y., for Overdose Awareness Day. She reached out to families who had lost loves ones, asking if they would be willing to provide photographs to accompany her talk.
“I put a little message out and I got 50 requests on just the one event,” Gillen explains. “Families like us take a lot of heart in seeing their children traveling around, so we kept it going.”
According to AinR founder Nancy Labov of Old Tappan, it’s the personal stories that are “the key ingredient that allows people to change their perception of addiction.”
“Alumni in Recovery started about six years ago to bring young people into schools they are familar with to talk about the pathway of addiction,” explains Labov.
Another facet of the organization is its Parent Program. This branch of AinR is for moms and dads who have lost children to addiction deaths.
“They are able to inform the public, alongside our young recovering members, about the disease of addiction,” Labov explained. “People in recovery and people in the grieving community are uniquely able to deliver this message and open the minds of so many. That’s what we’re doing, because there is a really big stigma around this disease process.”
In September, the Black Poster Project continues with stops in Oradell, Paramus and Demarest. You can find specific dates and times on AinR’s website, AlumniInRecovery.org.
—Photographer Murray Bass contributed to this article