After a 17-year-old girl died from a heroin overdose the previous week, Carol Frontera was bombarded with messages from people seeking a solution to the heroin scourge that has claimed 29 lives in Harford County this year.
Many of the messages stated, "we have to do something," Frontera told an audience of about 400 people gathered Saturday in the sanctuary of The Tent at Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in Bel Air.
They were there for the third annual Shining a Light on Recovery vigil to honor those who have died from a drug overdose or who are struggling with addiction, as well as their loved ones.
"My heart burns with a passion and a fire to not sit idly by and watch this epidemic continue to steal the lives of our youth," said Frontera, who is board president for the Albert P. Close Foundation.
The Harford County based foundation, which works with at-risk youth, partnered with Addiction Connection Resources, the Homecoming Project, the Harford County Office of Drug Control Policy and Maryland Recovery, as well as the church, to put on the vigil.
Frontera noted 129 people throughout the United States die each day from a drug overdose, a number she said is "staggering to me."
As of Saturday, there had been 188 heroin overdoses in Harford County this year, 29 of them fatal.
Twenty-eight people died from heroin overdoses in Harford during all of 2015. The tally of overdoses is displayed on signs at the Harford County Sheriff's Office main building in Bel Air as well as its precinct offices.
"We must embrace those in need," Frontera said. "This plague requires an act of courage from all of us."
She encouraged anyone who works with young people in any capacity to "stand up and embrace those suffering."
"We as a community need to stand together and tell those that are suffering that recovery is possible, that they can live a life free from their addiction and that they are not alone," Frontera said.
Heroin addiction has affected families throughout Harford County. The daughter of Mt. Zion's pastor, the Rev. Craig McLaughlin, died of an overdose in March of 2014.
"My beautiful, precious, 19-year-old daughter, Hannah, lost her battle," McLaughlin said.
He urged people to step out of their "tents" of sorrow, anger, shame and apathy.
"We are the army the soldiers of love who need to come out of our tent and be the blessing," McLaughlin said.
Later this month, the church will host a Harford County Health Department training session to become certified to use naloxone, or Narcan, to revive people who are overdosing, McLaughlin told the audience.
The training, which is free and open to the public, starts at 7 p.m., Sept. 28, in The Tent. Contact Wendy Kanely, of the health department, at wendy.kanely@maryland.gov to register.
Saturday's event included a vigil with battery-operated candles, musical tributes and a slideshow of pictures of people who have died from overdoses in recent years, including a handful of people who died in 2016.
Many people pictured were young, but there were also parents shown on the screen.
Pictures of the twin brother of church member Sarah Fiedler, as well as her mother, were part of the slideshow.
Fiedler's brother, Brandon Paulick, died in December of 2014 from a heroin overdose. Her mother, Jean Ruxton, died of a cocaine overdose in June of 2012.
She and her brother often sang in the church, and she performed a tribute to him Saturday, the song "Garden" by the Christian group Needtobreathe.
"He had a very passionate love of music," Fiedler said later.
She noted her brother had performed before the congregation to testify about his recovery.
"He always wanted his testimony to reach out to others and his faith in God," she said.
The guest speaker, recovering addict Morgan Pagels, talked about how she emphasizes to other addicts that recovery is possible.
"If you're breathing, you have a chance," she said.
Pagels, 30, lives in Bel Air and is an admissions coordinator for Maryland Recovery. She is married with two children, and she credits everything she has gained over the past 11 years of sobriety to her recovery process.
"The life that I've been blessed with is 150 percent because of my recovery," she said.
Pagels grew up "in a great home," played sports and musical instruments, but she became a heroin addict at age 16. The addiction started with opiods, or prescription pills, that she took to treat pain from a burn injury.
She was forced to leave home after high school and ended up living in a park in Baltimore, "willing to sell my soul" for her next high.
Pagels was eventually arrested, detoxed in jail and had to choose between recovery or prison – she chose recovery. She has been sober since May 10, 2005.
"My worst day clean was better than my best day using," she said.
Pagels said she feels she has a duty to help other addicts and remind them that recovery is possible.
"That's my responsibility, to make sure that somebody's hand is always there," she said.