Memorial to Suffolk's victims of drug overdoses to be unveiled in Copiague's Tanner Park Saturday

Karen Pike-Schlitt discovered her son Donovan was struggling with opioid addiction when she found him in the throes of an overdose.

“I walked into his room and thought he was having a seizure,” she said of the 28-year-old. “My whole world just fell apart that day.”

Eighteen months later, in July 2018, Donovan would succumb to another overdose. An autopsy revealed fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid, in his system.

On Saturday, the Town of Babylon will unveil a new memorial to overdose victims at Tanner Park in Copiague that will be both a place of remembrance and education. The memorial is dedicated to Donovan, with parts of it also dedicated to the children of parents Tracy Mieschberger and John Venza, who helped plan the tribute over the course of nearly five years.

Pike-Schlitt said the memorial, which she first proposed to Babylon Town Supervisor Rich Schaffer in 2022, will bring awareness to a mental health crisis that has no boundaries.

“People have to be aware that no matter how much money you have, no matter how well you bring your children up, no matter how much you love them, it just takes that one time, one innocent time,” she said. “People shouldn’t be ashamed.”

The memorial is east of the spray park at Tanner, in an open area near the water. It consists of a paved walkway with bricks on either side that loved ones can have engraved and which leads to a pergola with benches. Along the walkway there are resources including QR codes that can be scanned for information on addiction treatment and support for those who have lost someone. Nearby is fencing on which loved ones can attach engraved locks.

The memorial cost $805,000 and was split equally by the town, Suffolk County and the state, Schaffer said.

“It’s a site for people to go to deal with their loss but also it’s going to be a productive site that will provide vital information that may save a life,” Schaffer said, adding the memorial is also part of larger town efforts to “break the taboo” of talking about addiction.

The memorial unveiling on Saturday will start at 9:30 a.m. at Marjorie Post Park in Massapequa with a car parade that ends at the memorial. The event, co-hosted by the Town of Oyster Bay, Copiague Community Cares and Drug Free Long Island, is intended to bridge the two counties and demonstrate that the memorial is for all of Long Island, Schaffer said.

Pike-Schlitt, 69, of Medford, said she is pleased there is a resource component to the memorial. She said her son, a fierce defender of those being bullied and who had a goofy sense of humor that enamored him to all who knew him, went to rehab and attended meetings but it was a struggle to get the help he needed.

“He tried so hard,” she said. “But everywhere we turned for help it was like a door got slammed in our face.”

For Tracy Mieschberger, the memorial will be a place to remember her daughter Maddy, an accomplished softball player who died in 2018 at age 19 after taking a pill she didn't know was laced with fentanyl. But it will also be a site where she hopes she and others will connect with people who have suffered losses due to substance use.

“It’s very isolating,” said Mieschberger, 56, of Lindenhurst. “Even though you have family and friends around you and you kind of continue on with your life, you still feel alone ... you go to parties surrounded by family but you still sit there and think, ‘My daughter should be here.’ It’s very lonely.”

The memorial holds several different meanings for John Venza, 64, of Port Jefferson Station, who has worked in the mental health and substance abuse treatment fields for 45 years. Venza’s son Garrett was 21 when he died in 2016 from using fentanyl-laced heroin.

Today, there is more awareness of addiction, Venza said, and statistics show fewer overdoses. Last month, the state released figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that show overdose deaths have fallen 45% statewide since 2022, from 6,630 to 3,775 last year.

“Less folks have been dying but the flip side is that way too many people die,” he said. “And after so many years of this epidemic, there could be some desensitization ... this is a reminder that hey, this stuff is still around, it’s taken a lot of lives.”

The memorial in Copiague will also be a permanent site to remember substance abuse victims, not just for how they died, but for the lives they once lived.

“It’s a reminder that we have to remember our children for who they were before they fell to this disease,” Venza said. “That sometimes gets pushed to the side because everybody remembers the tragedy ... this spot is an opportunity to go from tragedy to triumph.”