On October 26, Makin’ It Happen and the DEA New England Field Division hosted our third annual Red Ribbon Breakfast! Red Ribbon Week is the national initiative focused on substance use prevention, and everyone who attended the event truly demonstrated how prevention saves lives. Representatives from the Manchester, Goffstown, and Bedford school districts were in attendance, as well as Trinity High School.
The breakfast also included two unique presentations! Dover Youth 2 Youth, a youth empowerment program centered around combatting alcohol and substance use, provided an educational video about the hazards of misleading branding on alcoholic products. One of many examples of this is using youthful products in collaboration with alcohol. The presentation highlighted the various ways in which branding tactics aimed to appeal to a certain audience can accidentally lead to or entice underage youth to consume alcohol.
The second presentation was from Makin’ It Happen’s team member and New England Patriots Cheerleader, Kay. She shared her story on how the things that once defined her and negatively impacted her have led her to where she is now. She hopes to inspire others to make the best decisions for themselves to achieve their dreams!
Among these representatives were high school and middle school students putting prevention into action by participating in the Zero Left Challenge. The core focus of this challenge is to distribute a select number of Deterra bags, and pouches used to safely dispose of and deactivate pill medications, and create awareness about this instrumental tool. Students decided to disseminate 50, 100, or in some cases, 150 bags! As a thank you for the student’s participation, Makin’ It Happen will provide pizza for their efforts!
The students from each school were also given a bouquet of flowers to gift to someone at their school who has made a positive impact in their lives or needed an extra boost of positivity in their day!
The Red Ribbon Breakfast is a morning we look forward to every year, and we would like to thank all who collaborated and participated to make it happen! We look forward to future prevention opportunities designed to invoke change in our surrounding communities.
Link to Dover Youth 2 Youth Website: https://dovery2y.org/
Photos by Stacy Harrison
