Overdose awareness march in Kensington pays homage to lost loved ones

A crowd of roughly 70 people followed a drumline down Kensington Avenue last night, holding purple balloons and homemade signs displaying the faces of deceased loved ones for the 2025 International Overdose Awareness Walk of Remembrance.

Grassroots organizations such as Operation Save Our City, The Everywhere Project and Philly Unknown Project collaborated on this year’s event, which dates back to 2017. The march began at Huntingdon Station, paused at Sunshine House drop-in center on Kensington Avenue to light candles, and ended at Prevention Point’s Love Lot for a recitation of the names of those lost to overdose.

“It’s a way to remember them and keep the awareness going of the issue we’re facing with the overdose crisis and the war on drugs,” said Operation in My Backyard organizer Nicole Bixler. 

Bixler used IV drugs in Kensington beginning at the age of 15, she said. She stopped using in her early 20s with the help of her mom. Now she spends some of her time providing meals, Narcan and xylazine test strips to people in the Kensington area.

“The people that are out here that we’re serving, maybe they’re struggling with substance use disorder, maybe they’re in this lifestyle because they’re escaping trauma or things happened to them,” she said. “But all of us are one decision or one hardship away from being in the same shoes as the people on the other side of the table.”

As the march began to roll Thursday, Brandie McIntyre was writing the names of two family members in Sharpie on a blue minibus. The Everywhere Project provided the vehicle as a moving memorial and will give it a plastic coating to preserve the markings, organizers said. 

In addition to mourning family, McIntyre said she was also paying homage to community members. She used to work in Kensington, signing people up for discounted cell phones. 

“I recognize like 60% of these people,” she said, looking around at the faces on the posters marchers carried. 

During the walk she held a photo of artist and father Mikey Hill, who died in 2023. He was 37. 

“It’s crazy they handed me his picture,” said McIntyre, who immediately recognized Hill from the neighborhood. “I didn’t know he was dead.”

McIntyre was there with her friend Eileen C., who is in recovery and asked not to have her last name published. 

Eileen said the most important thing people can do for those who are using drugs is provide “accountability” and “hope”, no matter how many times a person backslides.

“A lot of people are trying to get help,” Eileen said. “Some of us die. You never stop trying.”

There were just over 1,000 unintentional fatal overdose deaths in Philadelphia in 2024 according to city data, about 20% fewer than the year before. Almost all (93%) of those deaths involved the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

Priscilla Ramos jumped into the march when she saw it passing by as she stepped off of the train. She saw a picture of someone she knew who recently passed. She hadn’t known. 

Ramos recently began her recovery journey and has been rebuilding her relationship with her children. 

“They're the ones that suffer from our actions,” she said. 

She wants to remind people who are in addiction of their worth. 

“People really out here thinking that they don't matter, that no one cares about them,” she said. “That's not true.” 

Bre Ciberey was marching to send a message to the people using drugs on the avenue. She’s been in recovery for 13 months and has lost friends from overdoses. 

“Just letting people know … There is another way to live and that we're here, if and when they're ready to get help,” Ciberey said. 

She said it’s easy to fall into hopelessness.

“We often say that ‘we'll love you until you love yourself.’ And that's what people did for me. That's what I'm just trying to do for other people.”

Jack Skrable, 33, lost both his brothers to fentanyl overdoses – what he describes as preventable deaths. 

“It's been proven many, many times over many, many studies, for over 20 years at this point, that reducing harm, making sure people stay alive until they can enter recovery themselves, if they choose to, is the only way that it sticks and that it works,” Skrable said. 

Standing in the Love Lot at the closing of the march, Skrable said being in community and volunteering with Operation in My Backyard alleviates some pain. 

“It makes me feel closer to my brothers, that’s why I do it.” 

Skrable referenced Councilmember Quetcy Lozada’s legislation passed by city council in May that bans mobile service providers from most of Kensington. 

“Seeing all these backwards actions, regressions in policy, and attitudes overall, is disheartening,” he said.

Lozada describes the law as a way to regulate services and an effort to improve quality of life for housed residents. Enforcement is on hold, as the city develops a permitting process and awaits a vote on those regulations from the board of health. 

Bixler, with Operation in My Backyard, is also worried about the consequences of the law – especially the new stipulation that non-medical service providers change locations every 45 minutes. 

“Our participants rely on the services,” she said. “[City officials] are kind of putting a nail in a coffin for many people with not being able to access life saving services,” she said.

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