A group of about 40 people gathered in Elderberry Pond Park in Falls Township’s Levittown section Wednesday night to release balloons and lanterns while remembering 21-year-old Shannon McDonough-Mayer, who passed away one year ago from an opioid overdose.
“Shannon was full of life,” began her mom, Pam Duffy Mayer who organized the ceremony.
McDonough-Mayer’s dad, Russell Mayer, said: “She had a very good heart.”
Throughout her life, McDonough-Mayer loved roller skating and was very athletic, Duffy said. She loved her two children, her family and the holidays, especially Christmas. She loved dancing and teaching her daughter how to dance, said her boyfriend, Kory Smart.
McDonough-Mayer lived in the Elderberry Pond section of Levittown and attended Pennsbury High School. She passed away one year ago.
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“Her kids were definitely her shining star,” Smart explained. “She had a laugh and a smile that would brighten a room immediately.”
Duffy picked the park because McDonough-Mayer was always there growing up.
Before McDonough-Mayer lost her life to addiction, though, she went through seven or eight rehabilitation attempts, Duffy explained.
Last year, approximately 140 drug overdose deaths were investigated by the Bucks County Coroner’s Office, according to public records.
“It is killing too many, and there has to be a cure for it,” Duffy said. “I just think the drug epidemic is way out of control.”
