Dawson County Family Connection’s Third “Family Fair” Features Fun, Food, Fellowship

Print This Post


By Julia Hansen
DCN Staff
Aug 19, 2024

Hundreds of local families and individuals turned out for one nonprofit’s annual family-focused event in Dawsonville this past Friday.

Despite the rain later that evening, children still had plenty of time beforehand to enjoy fun-filled games. People of all ages enjoyed freebies like concession-style foods, books, balloon animals or face painting, just to name a few.

Dawson County Family Connection Coordinator Rebecca Bliss estimated that they’d planned for about 500 people to attend the nonprofit’s third year of the event.

Helpful resources included take-home information and freebies from a variety of organizations, from food banks and health and wellbeing-related nonprofits to public entities like the state’s Department of Public Health and Department of Behavioral Health (DPH) and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD).

In particular, a number of people stopped by for more details on DPH’s opioid awareness and management resources, like lock boxes for medications and wipes to test pills for Fentanyl to Narcan, a medication to help reverse drug overdoses, and instructions on how to use it.

Longtime local public servant and current DBHDD Commissioner Kevin Tanner attended Friday’s Family Fair event, calling it “an exciting opportunity and a good way for the community to come out and have a good time.”

“Any opportunity we get to promote mental health and any opportunity we get to try to reduce stigma around asking for help, we want to take advantage of that,” Tanner said.

So far, the state has spent around $3.5 million on promoting the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, he told DCN.

A year ago, only about 16% of people in Georgia knew about the revamped crisis hotline. Now, that number’s at about 85%.

“We’re getting 20,000 calls a month, and it’s saving lives each and every day, so we’re trying to spread the word,” Tanner said.

September will be Suicide Awareness and Prevention Month. Next month will also be National Recovery Month.

DBHDD will be sponsoring the Georgia Council on Recovery for a statewide bus tour, Tanner said.

He explained the effort focus on “decreasing stigma” through educating others on how people with substance use or mental health issues are recovering and “helping get people to a place of recovery.”

DCN will continue reporting on resources to help Dawson-area families and individuals.

Read the story on dawsonnews.com.