DGS will be hosting their Red Ribbon Week activities the week of Oct. 10. Red Ribbon Week is the nation’s largest drug prevention campaign that provides resources, advocacy and awareness about the drug epidemic in America. This year at DGS, former NBA player speaker Chris Herren will be returning to DGS to speak on his battle with drug addiction.

Red Ribbon focuses on helping youth live a drug free life. According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, 2.08 million teenagers reported using drugs in the last month and 50% of teens reporting misusing drugs at least once. Student Assistance Coordinator, Antonia Stamatoukos, speaks about what Red Ribbon does to spread awareness, as well as what she does for the school.

“Red Ribbon week is actually a national organization used to just keep students safe and drug free. It is something we do just within the entire United States, but then here at the school we usually have, myself, which I’m the student assistance coordinator, which is a fancy way of saying I’m a substance use social worker. So we just work within the teams, we do prevention with students for intervention procedures for those using substances,” Stamatoukos said.

Drug addiction can be present no matter the age of a person and could even begin in middle school. Several students as DGS choose to stay away from drugs. Senior Teah Stephenson is one of those people.

“I choose to live a drug free life because I value my health and like to enjoy the world around me without the effects of drugs,” Stephenson said.

The theme of DGS’s Red Ribbon week is “Good Enough”, which will be talked about more by Herren in his presentation on Tuesday the 10th. With their seventh period classes, students will hear an introductory video and presentation from Herren, with time for questions at the end.

“We love to have students just engage with him and he’s such an engaging speaker. He talks about his own story and the unique thing about Chris Herren’s story is that he talks about not what happened to him as someone with an addiction at the end of the addiction, but the first day,” Stamatoukos said.

Along with speaking at DGS, Herren will be speaking at DGN in the morning and will be holding a talk for community members Tuesday night. Students will be able to learn about Herren’s personal battle with addiction through his talk and learn how he recovered.

Red Ribbon week was designed to teach students about how to stay drug free as well as what drugs can do to your body. They can also help students live a healthier lifestyle and grow as a person.

“I think learning about Red Ribbon Week is important because some people don’t know what it is and they can become educated on drug abuse and then change their lifestyle,” Stephenson said.

Stamatoukos agrees that learning about drug prevention in your teenage years is important.

“I think that it’s important for teenagers to understand that you can have a great fun life without substances and you can find other ways to relax without substances and that that’s not something you need to have in your life and living a healthy lifestyle is really important. Not introducing things into your body especially at such a young age as it also impacts your brain development,” Stamatoukos said.

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