A remembrance Christmas tree to honor those whose lives were lost to overdose is on display at Hammond Aire Auto Spa in Baton Rouge.
For three years now, Agape Angels has set up this tree to recognize all who died from overdoses. This year, the tree will remember more than 500 people.
Agape Angels is an overdose awareness organization that arranges events like the remembrance tree and provides Narcan, treatment bags and car rides to treatment centers.
The organization was founded by a group of friends in the addiction recovery community: Rochelle Daigle, Anna Vicknair-Sibley, Brooke Bagbey-Humphreys, Courtney Viator and Lindsey Williamson.
Williamson’s fiance, Brett Jones, and Daigle’s “best friend,” Kristen McLeod, both died from fentanyl overdoses in 2020, so Agape Angels was born to help their friends and families remember them and grieve their losses.
“The opioid crisis has everyone in our community dying. We had to grieve somehow. We had and still have hopeless families looking to us for help. Grief is love with no where to go, and we don’t want to forget their faces.”
-Rochelle Daigle
The group holds two events each year in their honor, Light up the Levee and the remembrance tree at Gene Humphreys’ Hammond Aire Auto Spa.
The first Light up the Levee was a fundraiser for Jones and McLeod and then the Christmas tree followed.
Light up the Levee is an event where they release Chinese lanterns on the levee in Baton Rouge. This year, the event was held on Dec. 9th, and they released 220 lanterns.
“We just want the families of these amazing people to have a voice and to know that we remember so their life does not seem so dark,” Daigle said.
If there is someone in your life who you want remembered, send their picture to Agape Angel’s Facebook page for it to be added to the tree.
“We are here to support the broken, the grieving, the addicted, and the lost.”
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