Activities laud drug-free living

Red Ribbon Week was created to honor a DEA agent killed by drug traffickers.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
POLAND -- Some Poland pupils wrote songs or raps about the ills of drug use.
Others created posters urging fellow classmates to remain drug free.
The activities were part of Red Ribbon Week, which runs through Monday and aims to teach children about the benefits of remaining drug free.
Doing drugs "can kill you even if you don't do it every day," Jeff Graham, 13, an eighth-grader at Poland Middle School, said of what he's learned through the week's events. "That's why you should never even try it."
Karen Krumpak, 14, another eighth-grader, helped make the posters hanging throughout the school as part of its Junior Leadership program. Each poster includes a drug-free message.
"We were responsible for making the posters and display cases," Karen said, adding that work started last week.
Annalise Walkama, 13, also in eighth grade, was one of the pupils who read daily morning announcements on the school's television station about the school's events.
Annalise said one boy in her class wrote a rap, while other girls wrote songs about the drug-free life that were shown to pupils in the Campbell school district through both schools' distance-learning technology.
Wide-ranging observance
The week was observed throughout the Poland district as well as other Mahoning Valley districts.
In Poland, it was sponsored by the township police department through its juvenile diversion program. Lucinda Caparso is the department's juvenile diversion officer.
Teresa Dalesandro, an elementary guidance counselor in the district, said the schools design activities around the week each year, but this marked the first year that each day had a theme.
Wednesday was hat day with the slogan, "Tip your hat to being drug free." On Thursday, all the pupils donned red clothing, and Friday was crazy sock day with the motto, "Sock it to drugs."
Pupils sported mismatched and multicolored socks for the occasion.
On other days, pupils wore a particular color depending on their grade levels and T-shirts of their favorite sports teams to "team up against drugs."
"We're emphasizing that there are things that are more fun to do than to do drugs," Dalesandro said.
Red Ribbon Week, a national observance, started in the late 1980s after drug traffickers murdered special agent Enrique Camarena of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. The event began as a tribute to the agent.
Camarena's congressman and a high school friend formed the Camarena Clubs in Camarena's California hometown. Club members pledge to live drug free in the agent's honor, and the Red Ribbon Campaign was born out of the clubs.
"We're telling them now, while they're young, to make healthy choices in their lives," Dalesandro said.