Patchogue church opens its doors for overdose awareness service

The Rev. Dwight Lee Wolter sat down Sunday next to a congregant and clutched her left hand in his as she cried during a musical offering at an overdose awareness service at his Patchogue church.

The message delivered inside the Congregational Church of Patchogue, harm reduction, hit close to home for the woman, Dorothy Johnson, whose 28-year-old son, Max Greenfeld, died of an opioid overdose on Sept. 1, 2011.

“It's so important to bring it to the church,” Johnson said of overdose awareness and prevention. “People that go to church, they pray, and everything is all good, but a lot of them go to church because they have certain issues, and they're praying for something.”

For Johnson, of Blue Point, and other congregants in attendance Sunday, that “something” was an opioid epidemic that has claimed the lives of hundreds of Long Island residents annually for more than a decade. Data from the Suffolk County Department of Health shows more than 450 people died of an overdose in the county last year alone.

Wolter said that while it was National Harm Reduction Justice Sunday for the United Church of Christ, not all congregations were choosing to participate. For him, it was a no-brainer.

“Wherever there is stigma or harm or injustice or oppression or discrimination, wherever it is, I'm there,” Wolter said, noting that he wants all people who walk through the doors of the 19th century church building to feel welcomed and supported.

During the service, Wolter led a blessing of Narcan, an opioid-overdose-reversal drug the church handed out to attendees. Wolter said he believes that church buildings should be required to carry Narcan in the same way they must keep fire extinguishers and automated external defibrillators. It’s time to end the stigma around drug abuse, he said.

“What Narcan does is it counteracts what’s happening in your [body],” he explained to the audience, all adults, many of them seniors.

“It wears off," Wolter added, "but not before we can get you to the hospital. It buys time. People have a problem with buying time for someone who’s dying?”

The pastor said the idea of giving someone a second chance at life resonates with him. He lost his 6-year-old daughter, Maya, in a crash with a drunken driver in 2005. Since becoming a pastor, Wolter said he has seen the opioid epidemic impact many members of his church.

He spoke of one young man helping out at the East Main Street Church's soup kitchen and dying of an overdose later that night.

Sunday’s service included vocal and piano renditions of songs written or popularized by Prince and Whitney Houston, two artists who died of drug overdoses.

"Today, you can't take drugs," said Stephen Martin of Patchogue, another attendee at the service. "It's just killing everyone.

Wolter gave attendees a chance to say a name of someone they knew who died. Johnson cried out, "Maxwell."

A former nurse, Johnson said that after her son's fatal overdose, opioid awareness became her mission. An organization she started in her son’s name has worked with the towns of Islip and Brookhaven on initiatives to educate community members and advocate for change.

Johnson said she wished Narcan had been available when she lost her son, who she described as a “wonderful person.”

“A lot of this happens in communities like mine,” she said. “Everything is mental health … At that moment, when my son was in that stage, it was mental health.”

While Johnson said she often feels she has to be strong for other people, attending Sunday’s service allowed her to “just let my spirit be.”

“Every church should have had something like this today,” she said.

With Drew Scott

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.