More than 20 people sat in semicircles of folding chairs at the Friendship Place the afternoon of Thursday, March 21.
The occasion was a clinic held by the Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department on the dangers of Fentanyl and how to use Narcan to combat Fentanyl and other opioid overdoses.
Lynelle Beasely at the memorial to opioid victims on the Centralia square.
Several there thought it was a necessary and overdue event.
“I think it was really great bringing awareness to Centralia,” Lynelle Beasley, one of the attendees, said afterward. “Just getting the facts, about Fentanyl and how to fight overdoses, was really important. And getting a supply of Narcan to hand out to people was really great as well.”
Beasley said she intended to distribute the Narcan to those who might need it.
She said she hoped to deliver the informational fliers and Narcan kits to local schools and other places.
Fentanyl has affected her life personally, she said. “I lost my fiancé, Tyler Guthman in 2022. I’m very motivated. I’m in college for this.”
For the complete article, see this week’s edition of the Centralia Fireside Guard
Listen below to volunteers Katie Bowen and her mother Janessa Crump discuss what the memorial crosses mean to them.
