What We Do

Toward achieving our mission, staff and volunteers do a variety of things to prevent and educate youth and the community about substance abuse.

1. We gather data about the problem of drug use in or community.  We seek to know the percent of youth who are abusing drugs, how often they use drugs, where they use drugs.  We seek to know how accepted underage drinking is in our community.  All so, we know how to tackle the problem.

2.  We work with law enforcement and the Skyline Drug Task Force.

  • We pay overtime for drug dog searches and extra patrols in high crime areas
  • We purchase equipment for police departments
  • We created and promoted the online tip-line, ReportADrugDealer.com

3. We work with youth.

  • We work with Students Against Destructive Decision (SADD) clubs to send youth leaders to the Youth Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Project training.  This is a week-long summer training at Longwood University where youth leaders develop plans on how to combat drug abuse at their schools.
  • We offer speakers for school assemblies and SADD club meetings during Prom season.
  • We support SADD clubs who conduct balloon releases in honor of someone effected by substance abuse.
  • We conduct a regional SADD Roundtable event that brings SADD club members from all area schools together for one day each year.
  • We seek to engage youth in educating their peers about the dangers of substance abuse through things like poster contests and video contests.
  • Coalition partners teach drug abuse prevention education in area schools.
  • Coalition partners provide after school activities, summer camps to at-risk youth, and other substance abuse free activities.

4. We participate in legislative days both at the state and federal levels to express support of drug prevention and enforcement legislation and against laws that would make drug/alcohol access easier to for youth.  We solicit governmental proclamations in support of drug prevention efforts.

5. We hold town hall meetings, sponsor educational training, and give community presentations.

  • We collaborated with the Skyline Drug Task Force to hold a community presentation on the state of drugs in our community.
  • We sponsored training on e-cigarettes.
  • We speak to any group in the community about our work, about specific drug threats such as marijuana, e-cigarettes, heroin, and ways the community can help prevent drug abuse.  If you are interested in a presentation to your school, classroom, church, youth group, civic organization, office, club, neighbors – let us know.

6. We participate in community events such as Kids Matter Day, Drug Take Back Days, Augusta County Fair, Sweet Dreams Festival, and more…

7. We conduct widespread media campaigns.

  • In 2015, we did a media campaign called “Be the Influence” to encourage parents to talk to their children early and consistently about drugs but especially underage drinking.
  • We maintain an active Facebook page where we provide the latest information on drugs in our area, tips for parents and announcements about community events.