OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford Bill Matteson, executive director of the COPE Foundation 19, cuts the ribbon for a garden on Church Street in Fredonia meant to commemorate victims of the opioid epidemic. From left are State Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, Chautauqua County Executive PJ Wendel, Matteson, his wife Kristy, Fredonia Mayor Douglas Essek and the county Department of Mental Hygiene’s Steve Killburn.

A non-profit foundation dedicated to fighting the opioid epidemic in Chautauqua County, and supporting family members of its victims, cut the ribbon on a memory garden last week in Fredonia.

Located on Church Street, the garden remembers people killed by opioid abuse. It was created by the COPE Foundation 19 and its executive director, Bill Matteson.

He said at Friday’s ceremony that networking with officials such as Fredonia Mayor Douglas Essek, County Sheriff Jim Quatrrone, County Executive PJ Wendel, and State Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, has assisted his organization greatly. Goodell, Essek and Wendel were at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“I gotta say that I’m overwhelmed, ” Matteson continued. “I’m trying not to be the emotional guy right now, but it is overwhelming — because let’s face it, a couple of us in here have lost a child. I try not to focus on that when I do this kind of stuff, but losing a child is the worst thing. To have my pastor at my church look at me three days later and say, ‘you’re going to find something good to come out of this’ — that’s not what I wanted to hear.

“But months later, I thought, ‘What can I do?'”… So that’s how this started.”

The “19” in COPE Foundation 19 stands for 2019, the year Bill Matteson’s son died from an overdose.

Matteson asked his wife, Kristy, to stand next to him while he was talking. “She is the one who has to deal with me when I’m having the emotional times, the sad times, the hard decisions, the many times I’ve come to her and said, ‘I’ve gotta quit. I just can’t do this anymore.'”

He thanked numerous others for their help as well. “Everybody’s stepping up and doing things and I’m learning,” he said.

Matteson later added, “Bill is not COPE. COPE is COPE… I want people if they think of COPE, to think of COPE and not me. Think of the community, think of what we’re doing here, because when were completely established and the gates are open, everything’s pouring out, no one’s going to want to remember an individual. They want to know the organization, the entity.”

Essek said, “What we are doing in society today right now is wrong and what Bill is doing is right. I’m learning in politics, and in life, you have masses and then there’s that one person by himself doing something. It’s that one person that’s making the right choices in the world, and you’re not following the masses all the time. Like right now, our village OK’d marijuana dispensaries in our village. I wasn’t for that, I’m against that.”

He added, “We must do something to control and help people who have addictions and to assist with the children of opioid parents to move on and survive. … I think a lot of officials and people would just like to hide these things in our society because that’s something you don’t want to think that we have a problem with. But we do have a problem with that here and Bill is hitting it head on and trying to stop that.”

Matteson asked the OBSERVER to note that Fresh and Fancy Floral Design of Fredonia donated a wreath for the ceremony at the last minute. He also sought a mention of the COPE Foundation’s website, www.copefoundation19.com.