Overdose Awareness Month: Remembrance and Education

Overdose Awareness Month

Come join GLIDE's Center for Social Justice for a special event dedicated to remembrance and raising awareness about overdose prevention. This event will shed light on the many complexities with experts in the field, and a moment to share, heal, and be with community.

Overdose Awareness Month is dedicated to:

Remembering and grieving those lost to overdose: Acknowledging the profound grief of families and friends left behind.

Raising awareness about the overdose crisis: Highlighting it as a critical public health issue and stimulating action and discussion about overdose prevention.

Encouraging support and recovery: Promoting compassion, reducing the stigma associated with drug-related deaths and substance use, and supporting recovery for those impacted.

Promoting evidence-based solutions: Advocating for continued funding, programs, and strategies to prevent overdose and save lives.

Learning more: Educate yourself about overdose prevention, recognizing the signs of overdose, and how to respond in an emergency.

Talking about it: Break down the stigma by having conversations about the overdose crisis and encouraging open dialogue within your community.

Moderator:

Naeemah Charles, Senior Director, Glide Center for Social Justice

Panelist include:

Del Seymour

Del Seymour, referred to as the Mayor of the Tenderloin, has lived in this Community for 38 years. He serves on many Boards including two at City Hall. He survived 18 years of addiction in the Tenderloin and founded Code Tenderloin and Tenderloin Walking Tours as well as Tenderloin Blackness.

Apple Cronk

Apple is a mother, writer, and passionate advocate for justice whose lived experience fuels their commitment to transformative change. Having survived over a decade of homelessness on the streets of San Francisco and overcome a long period of substance use rooted in childhood trauma, they now celebrate more than two years in recovery. Their journey through systems of neglect, including the foster care system and housing instability, gives them a rare and essential insight into the challenges facing unhoused and marginalized communities.

As a student of social justice and emerging political voice, Apple advocates for policy reforms that support families, expand access to care, and center on compassion over punishment. Apple draws from lived experience navigating institutions like family court and child welfare, using their story to expose the harm caused by systemic failure and inspire change.

Apple's work is rooted in the belief that no one should be alienated or criminalized for their identity, trauma, or poverty. Through storytelling and advocacy, they push for policies that uplift rather than condemn, and for a future where healing is a right, not a privilege.

Laura Guzman, JD

Laura Guzman currently serves as the Executive Director of the National Harm Reduction Coalition (NHRC), a national capacity building non-profit organization that advocates for the rights and wellbeing of people who use drugs. In this role as a national leader, she has spearheaded transformative initiatives at the forefront of harm reduction, homelessness, health, and housing. Notably, Laura's leadership at NHRC has not only garnered national recognition but has also secured substantial investments, including a $61 million commitment from California's opioid settlement funds to extend the California Harm Reduction Initiative she championed.

Her legacy includes founding and directing the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center, a vital harm reduction and health care for the homeless project serving San Francisco's marginalized communities.

Laura's unwavering commitment to advocacy and service began during the AIDS epidemic, shaping her profound dedication to offering dignified support and care to those in need. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Laura holds a Juris Doctor degree from New College of California School of Law (1995) and a Bachelors in Linguistics from University of California at Berkeley (1992). She currently serves as Chair of the Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless Commission and member of the Board of Directors of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council.

Maurice Byrd, LMFT

Maurice Byrd is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist working as a harm reductionist for the past 20 years. He is a clinical supervisor and has collaborated in the development and implementation of community mental health programs for people experiencing chronic mental health disorders, substance use disorders and experiencing homelessness. During his career, he has worked with adolescents and adults. He has provided mental health services in middle schools, high schools, in private practice settings, in the San Francisco County J*il system, in San Quentin Pr*son, in homeless drop-in centers, at needle exchanges, and on the sidewalk with people experiencing homelessness.

Maurice specializes in teaching the fundamentals of practicing Harm Reduction Psychotherapy. He also enjoys teaching about facilitating groups and led a Harm Reduction Marijuana Group for system exposed young adults that he facilitated for 8 years.

Maurice has been trained in MDMA for PTSD with MAPS and Ketamine assisted therapy. He also provides individual and group KAT therapy in his private practice. He has taught in the MFT program at Holy Names University in Oakland, CA focusing on Substance Use interventions and Community Mental Health. He is a published author, cowriting the chapter Dealing with Drug Use After Pr*son: Harm Reduction Therapy in the book Decarcerating America.

Special Opening Performance

Skywatchers

Skywatchers is a cross-cultural, intergenerational, mixed-ability community arts collaboration in San Francisco’s Tenderloin Neighborhood. Based on the belief that relationships are the first site of social change, we deploy our arts to weave the power and intimacy of personal stories, centering marginalized voices to shape culture and celebrate our interdependence.

https://www.skywatcherssf.org/

Grounding and Healing

Senior Manager of Transformational Learning, Rashida Wells Oji

Bring a candle, a special picture of someone, or flowers to place on our healing altar of remembrance. For more information, please contact Erick Arguello, Advocacy Manager at [email protected]

Come join this very special event to heal, learn and to help save lives.

In solidarity

Glide's Center for Social Justice

GLIDE

Freedom Hall

330 Ellis St.

San Francisco, Ca. 94102

6 to 8 PM

Event Venue

Glide Memorial Church, 330 Ellis St, San Francisco, United States