There’s something akin to alchemy about how, with just a simple candle, a handful of sand and a match, a plain paper bag can be transformed into a moving memorial called a luminaria, which, come nightfall, can glow with the spirit of a beloved human being.
There’s something even more akin to alchemy, says Gloucester’s Kathy Day, about how — simply by substituting that handful of sand with a can of food — that luminarias can become a donation of vitally needed food for Gloucester’s Open Door food pantry.
That will be happening again this year at Gloucester’s end-of-summer Luminaries & Love vigil on Monday, Aug. 26, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. The vigil near the flag pole at the western end of Stacy Boulevard is to remember those lost to drug addiction.
Day, a longtime volunteer and Learn To Cope’s director of program development and training, has for the past 13 years been the moving force behind the Luminary & Love vigil. In 2021, she got the bright idea and launched in partnership with The Open Door an annual canned food drive to replace sand with food to anchor the ever-growing numbers of glowing luminaries that, as dusk deepens on the Outer Harbor, line the Stacy Boulevard waterfront as haunting monuments to lives lost to addiction.
In the years since, Day’s idea has raised thousands of pounds of donations from the community for the community through The Open Door. Along the way, that process got a big boost with the creation of an online Amazon Wish List. That, says Day, has made her Amazon delivery man a busy fellow.
This summer, since the can drive began at the end of July, donations have been pouring in at a great rate. Day says she expects donations to exceed 1,500 pounds by Monday’s vigil.
Back in 2012 when Day and her then-partner Gary Langis organized the first gathering, it was simply called an Overdose Vigil, timed to coordinate with the International Overdose Day on Aug. 30. There was, at the time, some trepidation about how it would be received, given that Gloucester had long been scourged with the stigma of drug addiction, and only two years earlier, the Boston Phoenix had referred to it as “The Addicted City.”
Though things — the stigma, particularly — have changed drastically since then, and Gloucester has been international recognized for playing a pivotal role in changing the understanding and treatment of addiction, the problem remains.
It hasn’t been an easy evolution and it remains imperfect, but events such as the Overdose Vigil is where it started. At Gloucester’s first vigil, worries about its reception soon faded, as people showed up — from grandparents to grandkids — some on bicycles, some in strollers, some in wheelchair, most with end-of-summer tans, all of them hushed or chatting quietly, or kneeling in front of the luminaries glowing in lines, illuminating the darkened Outer Harbor.
They came in droves, and they’ve been coming ever since.
Joann Mackenzie may be contacted at 978-675-2707 or jmackenzie@northofboston.com.