MORRIS COUNTY — Morris County officials joined families who lost loved ones to overdose, people in recovery, and community service providers outside the Morris County Human Services Complex in Parsippany Township to observe the twenty-fifth International Overdose Awareness Day.
The ceremony, organized by the Morris County Division of Community and Behavioral Health Services, marked the seventh consecutive year the county has held the observance at the Human Services Complex. Surrounded by photos of those who died, attendees renewed the county’s commitment to preventing future overdose deaths while paying tribute to longtime advocate Carol Egan, who died earlier this year.
“Carol was here from the beginning, and she stood on this very spot to lead the remembrance of those that we have lost,” said Morris County Commissioner Christine Myers. “She gave families remarkable hope and the courage to grieve together. The best way we can honor her memory is to continue what she started, to show up, to serve, to never stop believing that recovery is possible for every person.”
State Senator Anthony Bucco, who sponsored the legislation designating August 31 as Overdose Awareness Day in New Jersey, emceed the ceremony and led a tribute to Egan. He noted that Egan worked alongside Kathleen Hyland for more than three decades, together helping establish New Jersey’s first Municipal Alliance in 1990 and developing substance prevention programs in Morris Township and Morristown.
Chloe Finnerty, now seventeen, spoke at the ceremony. She was seven years old when her brother, Justin, died of an overdose in 2016, and stood beside her mother at the county’s first Overdose Awareness Day ceremony in 2020. “Addiction doesn’t define who you are,” Finnerty said. “There’s so much more to people than their struggles.”
A Decline in Overdose Deaths, But Continued Concern
New Jersey continues to see a significant decline in fatal drug overdoses. The state recorded 1,312 suspected overdose deaths in 2025, a 27 percent decrease from 2024 and more than a 50 percent decrease from the pandemic-era peak of 3,047 in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Fatal drug overdoses in Morris County are declining. This is worth celebrating,” said Morris County Sheriff James Gannon. “It tells us that our collective efforts, education, outreach, treatment and support are making a difference. But it also reminds us that our work is far from over, and every single loss is one too many.”
The county has responded to the crisis through programs including Hope One, Hope Hub, Community Connections, the Hope Wing at the Morris County Correctional Facility, and Navigating Hope, a mobile outreach partnership between the county’s Department of Human Services and Family Promise of Morris County. Since launching in 2017, Hope One has made approximately 77,000 community contacts and provided nearly 15,000 trainings on the emergency use of naloxone to reverse opioid overdoses. Gannon said the program has recorded 196 lives saved through those trainings and generated more than 2,300 referrals to services, and has since been replicated in nine other New Jersey counties.
Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Kelly, representing the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office, described the office’s two-pronged approach of connecting people struggling with addiction to treatment while pursuing those who distribute dangerous narcotics, including through the Morris County Recovery Court program.
Personal Stories of Loss and Recovery
The ceremony included memorial banners displaying the names and photographs of Morris County residents who died from overdose, drawn from the Drug Epidemic Memorial, a virtual international wall whose creation was spearheaded by Egan.
Maria Stoker, whose son Thomas died from an overdose in 2023, shared her experience of losing a child to addiction. Carmine Pizzo, a recovering addict who now works with Market Street Mission, spoke about his path from addiction and homelessness to recovery. Timothy Gulick, a certified peer recovery specialist with Prevention Is Key, spoke about the effects of stigma on those struggling with addiction, recalling a line from another speaker at a past ceremony: “My brother did not die from an overdose; he died from shame.”
The program opened with a prayer from Rabbi Inna Serebro-Litvak of Temple Shalom in Roxbury Township and closed with a prayer from Pastor Chuck Corradino of Butler Church of the Nazarene.
The first Morris County Overdose Awareness Day ceremony was held in 2020, when the county planted a weeping cherry tree at the site in honor of lives lost to addiction and overdose. “Each year, as the cherry tree blossoms and grows, it reminds us that renewal is possible,” Myers said. “There is life after loss, and the work we do together matters.”
