Community leaders, families and advocates gathered at Gloucester Township’s Timber Creek Park on Aug. 28 for a solemn candlelight vigil that coincided with International Overdose Awareness Day and raised awareness of the ongoing addiction crisis.
The annual Camden County vigil was organized by the board of commissioners, in partnership with the Camden County Addiction Awareness Task Force. Among officials in attendance were Congressman Donald Norcross, Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr. and county Prosecutor Grace MacAulay.
This year’s keynote address was delivered by Pam Lanhart, founder and executive director of Minnesota-based Thrive Family Recovery Resources, a nonprofit that supports families struggling with substance use disorder. She founded the organization after losing her own son to addiction in 2021, and she spoke about the importance of breaking the stigma around addiction and supporting families in recovery.
Cappelli reflected on the county’s progress in addressing addiction.
“The decline in fatal overdoses is directly related to the initiatives and programs that the commissioner board and the Camden County Addiction Awareness Task Force have implemented and installed,” he explained. “It goes back to a day of reckoning and a call for action we had at a summit inside the Scottish Rite Theater in Collingswood in 2014. That day, we were announcing a public health emergency related to opioid use disorder, and to our surprise, more than 1,000 people came together that night to express the pain that addiction was visiting upon their family or loved ones.
“Since that time, we’ve worked tirelessly to de-stigmatize substance abuse, to create programs that intervene and assist individuals to get into treatment and educate families on the dangers of opioids.”
International Overdose Awareness Day – officially Aug. 31 – is a global campaign to battle addiction-related deaths, remember victims and support grieving families without judgment.
According to the state attorney general’s office, suspected drug-related deaths in Camden County have declined significantly. Between January and June 2025, there were 59 deaths, compared with 109 during the same period in 2024 and 180 in 2023.
Cappelli believes the vigil plays a vital role beyond county programs and policy.
“The public vigil represents two objectives,” he noted. “One is to eliminate the stigma around substance use disorder, and the other is to give the grieving families who have lost someone a public place to go where they can be surrounded by community.”
Still, policy has resulted in a Naloxone – known as Narcan – box installed in every school, park and county-owned building. At the Camden County Correctional Facility in Camden, officials established a nationally recognized Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) program that has been shown to reduce overdoses among individuals after their release.
A mobile Buprenorphine pilot program provides on-the-spot treatment and Narcan kits to patients being cared for in an emergency. The county has also rolled out a wide-reaching fentanyl awareness campaign to educate the public about the drug’s deadly effects. Officials have also offered free Naloxone training sessions, fentanyl test strips and mental-health support services for individuals and families.
Cappelli emphasized that changing perceptions about addiction remains a central focus.
“Education is foremost, and that is directly tied into the medical fact that addiction is a disease and needs to be treated as such,” he pointed out. “No one who is struggling in the depths of substance abuse wants to be in that place, and our job is to point out that this isn’t a moral failing, but someone who is struggling through a legitimate medical condition that needs our collective help.”
Cappelli also highlighted the importance of tools like Narcan in local communities.
“This (Narcan) is a tool for schools, bus drivers and members of the public to save a life in case they come across someone who is overdosing,” he noted. “In short, it makes our community stronger and healthier, it empowers residents and provides another chance for someone in the throes of addiction to get help.”
As the candles were lit at the Remembrance and Hope Memorial, Cappelli said the evening carried an important reminder.
“The message is that we are still in a public health epidemic,” he observed, “but now more than ever, we are making progress as a community,” he said. “The vigil also, and most importantly, gives families a place to reflect on the loved ones they have lost and convene with the community in a celebration of life and or continuing their mourning process with others who have the same lived experience.”
For addiction support in Camden County, contact the Office of Mental Health and Addiction at (856) 374-6361.
