CUMMING, Ga. — A two-day memorial concludes Sunday in Forsyth County ahead of Drug Overdose Awareness Day on August 31st. It's an emotional, visual representation of the lives gone too soon because of drug overdoses.
A sea of faces from all walks of life lines a shopping center in Cumming.
“Today is the 6th annual Tea Cup Memorial," Jennifer Hodge said.
Jennifer Hodge started the memorial with her son Robbie, who battled drug addiction after being prescribed pain pills when he was a teenager.
“Each one of these tea cups represents someone’s child because most of these tea cups are young people," Hodge said.
Each tea cup is filled out with a name, date of birth, date of death, where the person lived, and what they overdosed from.
“These are going to be lit, and that’s where the significance comes. We just really want this to impact people when they see it because every single light was a life that could have lived," Harrison Watson, a board member with Realty4Recovery said.
“We raise them up. We honor them for the fight that they fought that the battle was just too much," Hodge said.
The fight hits close to home for her.
“This is a tea cup for Robbie Hodge," Hodge said. "He passed away in 2016.”
Her son Robbie died at just 23 years old.
“He did die from one pill. It was a fake Xanax that his friend gave to him," Hodge said.
That pill was laced with fentanyl, a powerful drug 100 times stronger than heroin.
"My brother was four years older than me, but we were absolutely best friends. If there’s anything good that comes from losing a sibling, it’s the impact he’s made on so many people, and now it’s spreading worldwide," Lauren Hodge, Robbie's sister said.
This year, the family is lighting not just one candle but two. Robbie's father Michael died from a fentanyl overdose in June.
“We’re never going to get our children back, but the thing we’re never going to do is let the world forget what happened here and how this epidemic has taken control," Hodge said.
The Tea Cup memorial service will happen again Sunday, August 28, from 3 to 5 p.m. at CENTURY 21 Results Realty ay 2920 Ronald Reagan Parkway in Cumming.
Hodge started Realty4Recovery, a non-profit organization providing education, drug treatment, and Narcan kits to the public. Any realtor across the country can give 33% of his or her commission to the organization. That money is split between Realty4Recovery and the non-profit of the person's choice.
Nearly 92,000 people died from a drug overdose in the United States in 2020, compared to 71,000 in 2019, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fentanyl-involved drug overdose deaths increased by 218% in Georgia from 2019 to 2021.