By Ken Downey Jr. | Correspondent

With the sun beating down on a field wet from a storm the night before, hundreds gathered April 29 at Duck Pond Park for the first West Windsor Community Day, organized in part by St. David the King Parish.

“This has been a long time coming,” said Nanci Bachman, pastoral associate in the Princeton Junction parish.

Photo Gallery: West Windsor Community Day

The parish is part of The Religious Leaders of West Windsor, a collaboration that also includes representatives from the Jewish, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Muslim, Mormon, Baptist and other faiths, which together organized the event.

“We have been working to put this together for a while now, and we are just glad it’s finally happened. Today it is about everyone, it doesn’t matter what faith,” Bachman said.

A sense of community was the message The Religious Leaders of West Windsor was hoping to convey at the event, where members of the different faith traditions as well as the police department, schools, and West Windsor Recreation Department came together to take part in a day of fun – and tackle some difficult issues, too, such as crime and the rising problem of opioid addiction.

Bounce houses lined the outside of the park, and a rock climbing wall was present for anyone willing to take the challenge. A stage was put in place for several performances ranging from learning tai chi to the West Windsor High School Band. But then the time came to set aside the fun and call attention to one of the most difficult issues families may ever have to deal with as West Windsor police Lt. Matt Kemp addressed the growing threat of opioid and heroin addiction.

“As a community we can address this, and we can get rid of the problem of addiction,” he said, explaining the town’s Community Addiction Recovery Effort – a program that brings together police, schools, and faith-based and township resources to help those struggling with drugs.

“It helps the police department become an aid to these people rather than just locking them up and throwing away the key. So far, the CARE program has been a tremendous success. It has taken in people in active addiction and put them in active recovery,” he said.

The Religious Leaders of West Windsor and police department have been working alongside the nonprofit Recovery Advocates of America to show the community how serious they are to recovery efforts.

“We have an epidemic here, and it’s in every community,” said Mike Zaccardi, director of Recovery Advocates of America. “No matter where, addiction has no boundaries. If we’re afraid to talk about it and do something about it, our kids are going to die.”

Zaccardi has firsthand knowledge of the pain of addiction – he is a recovering heroin addict himself.

“At the age of 38, I became addicted to opiates and then heroin,” Zaccardi said. “I was working at a Fortune 500 company making six figures. I lived in a beautiful, affluent neighborhood in Mercer County. I was a loving husband of 15 years, and a loving father of two beautiful kids. I was uneducated [about opioids], and my addiction cost me everything – my marriage, my home, my job.”

As nearly two dozen wound down the day’s events by taking part in a Recovery Walk around Duck Pond Park, West Windsor Councilwoman Linda Geevers talked about the prevalence of opioid addiction.

“This is a problem that is touching every community in our nation. We are all here from all walks of life – it affects everyone,” she said. “It’s important to help people in their hour of need; we have to be there for them. If you help people one by one, you make a difference in the world.”

Pastor Ken Smith of Princeton Meadow Church, one of The Religious Leaders of West Windsor members, agreed.

“Our purpose is to encourage health in West Windsor,” he said of the religious consortium. “… and there are over 50 groups here today that are letting people know what is happening in the community.”