About 140 people participated in a charity run on Friday morning in Red Deer, raising close to $10,000 for Turning Point.

Ashley Balan organized the event, called Leah’s Light, in memory of her younger sister who died of an accidental opioid overdose in January.

“I feel that their services are so vital in Red Deer and I would like to support them to keep providing harm reduction supplies and their night reach program to everyone in Red Deer,” Balan said of Turning Point, a charity that has taken the lead in trying to bring supervised consumption services to the city to tackle opioid addiction.

Such services have yet to be offered in the city. Neither is there a drug treatment centre.

“She went to Calgary because Red Deer doesn’t have all the services that we need,” Balan said. “People that are seeking help with addiction actually have to leave to Edmonton, Calgary, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, to access those services.”

According to Alberta Government numbers, 355 people have died from an opioid overdose this year, an average of two per day.

Red Deer leads the province in per capita drug poisoning deaths related to fentanyl.

Balan said she hoped her event would break the stigma of drug addiction and encourage those struggling with it to seek help without feeling judged.

“I believe that addiction is a disease and that we should treat it as such. People that are active in addiction, aren’t bad people. Overdose doesn’t discriminate. Addiction doesn’t discriminate,” she said. “It doesn’t matter your age, it doesn’t matter your social class, your education, it doesn’t matter how well your parents raised you, it affects all of us.”