The third annual Overdose Awareness Poker Run will raise money to create recovery hope kits, which will be donated to a recovery house in Berks County.
Jolynn Melendez-Ortiz says she started the run after her oldest son, Dominic Staboleski, died from a fentanyl overdose in 2023.
Melendez-Ortiz says the motorcycle run is a way to get people talking about addiction, overdoses, and the fentanyl crisis while also honoring her son and others who have lost loved ones.
The run will be held at the Birdsboro Fire Company’s banquet hall on West First Street in Birdsboro.
Registration will start at 10 a.m. on Saturday, and the run will start at 11 a.m. You can register the day of.
“Our goal is to get this bigger cause the more people come and support this, the more people we can help,” Melendez-Ortiz says. “If I can save one mom from feeling what I felt the day that I found out I lost my son, I feel like I’ve accomplished something in my life.”
She says money raised will be used to put together kits that include items people need when coming off the streets and into recovery like toiletries, socks, journals, pens, and laundry soap.
After the run, there will be music, food and raffles.