GREENFIELD — Nicole St. Hilaire recently lost her father to an opioid overdose.

On Friday, through her role as outreach manager with CONNECT, St. Hilaire passed out free naloxone, a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose, in an effort to promote harm reduction practices. CONNECT, which stands for Community Opportunity, Network, Navigation, Exploration and Connection Team, is a regional collaboration of law enforcement, community health centers and outreach organizations created to combat the opioid epidemic in Franklin County.

“I felt like it was an important thing for me to do, to come here, and be around people that understand that kind of process,” St. Hilaire said, referring to grieving. “There was a time when there wasn’t Narcan. People were dying and there was nothing that would help them stay alive. Being able to have that one tool out in the community, that can work now … that can save a life, is as important as any other first aid.”

The event was held the day before International Overdose Awareness Day on Aug. 31, and came at a time when overdose fatalities have been unusually high in Greenfield, with eight deaths reported in the past three weeks, according to data collected by The RECOVER Project in Greenfield. Residents gathered in the courtyard labyrinth of the Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew for a vigil for those lost to overdose.

Sarah Ahern, a peer recovery coach, spoke about her own experiences with the opioid epidemic.

“My family has buried seven of our own,” Ahern said, adding that she lost her younger brother just over a year after the death of her brother’s husband. “I’m tired of burying my people.”

Ahern’s mother, Andrea Goldman Butynski, and sister, Rebecca Josie, stood next to her as she spoke, both crying. Josie held a framed photograph of her late brother and his late husband.

Ahern added that she identifies as someone in long-term recovery, and is herself a survivor of an overdose.

“It’s important to hold these grief spaces in the community to smash that stigma, and to show people that our people were more than their disease,” Ahern said. “My brother was more than his disease. He was the biggest light that I’ve ever seen. He came into a room, he lit it up. Every single person that I’ve buried had a story.”

Similar events were held throughout the surrounding area, including in Northampton and Holyoke, on the day prior to International Overdose Awareness Day. Community members were given purple light bulbs to turn on in a display of solidarity with those lost to overdose. International Overdose Awareness Day precedes National Recovery Month, which spans the month of September.

Mayor Ginny Desorgher also spoke at the vigil, sharing that before she became the mayor of Greenfield, she was an emergency room nurse, where she saw firsthand the effects of the opioid crisis.

“I personally have been touched in my lifetime by this tragedy,” Desorgher said, adding that the eight people who died of overdoses in the past three weeks all “touched people’s hearts” and will be “forever loved and remembered.”

Desorgher proclaimed Aug. 31 Overdose Awareness Day and spoke about the casualties of the opioid crisis, stating, “I’m just here to be with you, to stand by you as your mayor, to offer a little hope that I’m here with you, that I care, and that I love you, and those that you love.”

Speakers, including Desorgher and Ahern, emphasized a need for harm reduction tools, such as clean needle exchanges and the availability of naloxone (also known by its brand name, Narcan) to prevent further tragedy.

“We know, from decades of data, that the war on drugs has failed. It is not an approach that is accepted anymore,” Ahern said. “And part of overdose awareness is raising awareness of advocacy. So I encourage everybody to reach out to your legislators and tell them why [harm reduction] is important to this community.”

The vigil concluded with a ceremony in which community members could share the names of loved ones they had lost to overdoses while Ahern rang a gong once for each name shared.

“We don’t often get as much of a chance to grieve because of the … stigma around [overdose], but it’s still a loss,” said Claire McGale, the peer leadership development coordinator at The RECOVER Project. “This is an opportunity for us to come together and to hold our grief as a community and to spread awareness about how often it happens to everyday people.”