A Living Memorial: Tanner Park

The new Steps for Hope & Healing memorial at Tanner Park is more than a place to remember lives lost to addiction. It is a growing community space for remembrance, reflection, connection and hope.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of spending part of my day at Tanner Park for the unveiling of Steps for Hope & Healing.

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I came to share information about the prevention work happening in our community. But somewhere between the locks hanging on the fence, the photographs and names of loved ones, the families gathered beneath the pergola and the quiet water just beyond it, I found myself doing much more listening and reflecting than talking.

Maybe that is exactly what this place is meant to make us do.

A Mother's Idea Became a Community's Place

The memorial began with Karen Pike-Schlitt, whose son Donovan died from an overdose in 2018. Years later, she brought an idea to Town of Babylon Supervisor Rich Schaffer: create a place where families could remember loved ones lost to substance use without shame.

He listened.

And then something that is at the heart of good community work began to happen. One person's idea became a shared concern, and many people began bringing their own piece to it.

Schaffer helped move the vision forward, and Colleen Perrone of the Town of Babylon's Beacon Family Wellness Center worked alongside families and community partners to help turn that vision into something real. John Venza and Tracy Mieschberger, who also know the unimaginable loss of a child, helped shape the memorial over the years. The vision of Tim's mom, Teri kroll, and her dear friend Janice Talento, founder of Drug Free Long Island Coalition, to add an inter-county collaboration rounded out a genuine welcome for all.

The approximately $805,000 project was funded through the Town of Babylon, Suffolk County and New York State.

What stands at Tanner Park today is beautiful: a sweeping pergola, curved seating, gardens, pathways, memorial locks and information connecting visitors with resources for treatment, recovery, prevention, grief support and other services.

But perhaps one of the most important things about this place is that it isn't finished.

It isn't supposed to be.

A Living Memorial

Steps for Hope & Healing is a living memorial, one our community can return to again and again.

More names will come. More families will visit. Locks will be placed on the fence. Pavers will be added along the pathway. People will sit beneath the pergola to remember, talk, cry, learn or perhaps simply be quiet together. No one has to be alone anymore.

Some will come carrying grief. Others may come carrying fear for someone they love. Someone struggling with addiction may come looking for help. Someone in recovery may come looking for connection.

And others may simply walk through and leave understanding a little more about the people and families behind the word "addiction."

The Cassata Foundation is helping ensure that what began here will endure. Rosario Cassata and his family, continuing a long tradition of giving back to the community established by their father, are helping transform the plaques displayed throughout the memorial into permanent fixtures. The Foundation will also provide memorial pavers so additional families can honor their loved ones along the pathway.

In a very real sense, they are helping set these stories in stone. We assure our friends and neighbors that we will never forget.

Their generosity means this space can continue to grow, welcoming families who weren't present for the unveiling but who may find their way here months or years from now.

That is what makes this a living memorial rather than simply a monument.

We All Hold a Piece

Walking through the memorial, I kept thinking about a puzzle.

No one person holds all the pieces.

A mother willing to turn unimaginable grief into an idea holds one. A community leader willing to listen holds another. Families willing to share painful experiences hold pieces the rest of us need in order to understand.

Prevention professionals bring something. Treatment and recovery providers bring something else. Schools, law enforcement, government, businesses, foundations, faith communities, volunteers and neighbors each hold different pieces.

The gathering itself reflected that spirit, bringing together families and community members with organizations working across prevention, treatment, recovery and grief support.

No one piece completes the picture.

But when those pieces begin coming together, a community becomes better equipped to care for people before, during and after a crisis.

That matters because there is no single answer to addiction.

Prevention itself is not one-size-fits-all. It is a science that must also become woven into the culture of the community it serves. The goal is to provide the right dose of prevention for the right person at the right time.

Sometimes that means education. Sometimes it means strengthening families or giving a young person meaningful opportunities and a sense of belonging. Sometimes it means reducing access to addictive substances or intervening early when warning signs appear.

Sometimes someone needs clinical treatment. Sometimes they need recovery support.

And sometimes what people desperately need is connection.

The more pathways we create for people to find support, belonging, purpose, treatment and recovery, the stronger our communities become.

Steps for Hope & Healing adds another piece to that puzzle.

Names, Not Statistics

One of the most powerful things about the memorial is its simplicity.

A lock hangs from the fence with someone's photograph. A plaque tells a little bit about another life. A family stands together beside the name of someone who should still be standing there with them.

For a moment, the statistics disappear.

These were people.

They were sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, parents, friends and neighbors. They laughed. They loved people and people loved them. They had personalities, talents, histories, inside jokes and futures imagined for them.

Addiction may have become part of their stories, but it was never the entirety of who they were.

There should be no shame in saying their names.

And there should be no shame in a family needing a place to remember them.

A Place for What Comes Next

What moved me most is that the memorial doesn't stop at remembering.

Throughout the space are connections to treatment, recovery and grief resources. Someone can arrive simply to remember a person they love and encounter information that might help another person who is still struggling.

Think about what that means.

Someone may walk into this garden because they lost a child.

Someone else may arrive frightened that they are going to lose one.

Another person may quietly scan a QR code because they are finally ready to ask for help.

A person in recovery may come simply because being near people who understand feels good that day.

All of them belong there.

Some of us live with the fear of what could happen. Some of us live with the grief of what did happen.

This beautiful space somehow makes room for both.

Grief Beside Hope

There is faith in this work, too, however each of us understands it.

Faith does not mean believing we can control every outcome. Sometimes it means doing everything we know how to do, accepting that some things remain beyond our control, and continuing to show up for one another anyway.

We cannot rewrite the journeys that brought these families to Tanner Park.

But we can listen to them.

We can learn from them.

We can take what their experiences teach us and strengthen the connections around the next family, the next young person, the next person struggling and the next person searching for a way forward.

That is why I left Tanner Park feeling so grateful.

Grateful to Karen for carrying an idea born from unimaginable loss and having the courage to share it. Grateful to the families who put names and faces to something society once discussed in whispers. Grateful to Rich Schaffer for listening and helping create a pathway for that vision. Grateful to Colleen Perrone and the many people who carried the work forward. Grateful to Rosario Cassata and the Cassata Foundation for helping give this memorial permanence. And grateful to the treatment, recovery, prevention and grief-support professionals, organizations, funders, volunteers and community members who continue to bring their own pieces to this work.

Because no one owns this puzzle.

And no one can complete it alone.

What was unveiled at Tanner Park was not the conclusion of a project. It was the beginning of a place our community can return to again and again.

A place where stories will continue to be told.

A place where families can gather and remember.

A place where someone who needs help might find it.

A place where grief is allowed to sit beside hope.

And perhaps that is what prevention, treatment, recovery, remembrance and healing ultimately have in common.

They all begin with human connection.

Sponsors:

Town of Babylon

Town of Oyster Bay

Copiague Community Cares Coalition, Inc.

Drug Free Long Island

Main Level Sponsorships

Thrive Recovery Centers

Forge Health

LICADD