By Sarah Thomack
St. Joseph Post

The opioid task force and others in St. Joseph will be taking part in a day next week to bring awareness to the impact of drug addiction and overdose.

This will be the fourth year that Black Balloon Day will be observed nationally and the first year in St. Joseph. Black Balloon Day is Wednesday, March 6th.

St. Joseph Health Dept. Health Educator Nancy King said the day is observed by people placing a black balloon outside of their home or business to bring awareness of everyone who has been lost to addictions.

“When we had our International Overdose Awareness Day event in August, we had a mother that drove up from Platte City to attend our event. She was actually from Scott County, Indiana, and she had a beautiful daughter that she lost to heroin overdose earlier that year and she was the one who told us about Black Balloon Day,” King said. “We’ve started the Opioid Task Force, we’re trying to raise awareness in our community, we thought this is a simple way that we can bring people together, show solidarity, whether you’ve been personally impacted by drug addiction or you just have a concern about our community, about the direction that it’s going with the drug epidemic that’s running rampant across the country.”

Balloons with the Black Balloon Day message printed on them will be available to pick up at the St. Joseph Health Department and at the St. Joseph Youth Alliance.

For more information, contact Nancy King at the health department at (816) 236-1491.