RED RIBBON WEEK KICKS OFF

MOULTRIE --The courthouse square is often the scene of celebrations,
promotions and educational events. On Monday, it was all about drug
prevention with a focus on the children.

"Face the fact, drugs are wack," was one of the messages the
Communities In Schools (CIS) 21st Century Afterschool Program First
Annual Fall Festival promoted to parents and children.

"Drug prevention is a community-wide issue," said Denise Bell,
executive director of CIS.

The CIS Fall Festival, which helped to kick-off Red Ribbon Week, was
held on the square Monday evening with about 350 students and parents
in attendance. The festival included free games and activities, hot
dogs and hamburgers and a raffle for a DVD player. Even though there
was a chill in the air, it seemed as if the students' only concerns
were the activities that kept them entertained. Each booth sported a
poster with a "drug free" message that coincided with the game or
activity being presented including phrases like "Life is sweet being
drug free" for the sweets table and "Count drugs out" for the jelly
bean count table. The most popular game seemed to be the soda bottle
ring toss and this booth was constantly busy through the two-hour
duration of the festival. Many participants walked away with a
two-liter bottle of soda along with the other "freebies" offered and
won during the evening.

Red Ribbon Week is a campaign that promotes a drug-free America and
is named for the red ribbon that students, parents, teachers and
businesses wear and display to show that they support this endeavor.
The red ribbon was originally adopted because friends and neighbors
began wearing red badges of satin as a symbol to honor the death of
federal drug enforcement agent, Enrique Camarnea, who died in
February of 1985 while investigating a major drug cartel in Mexico.
Red Ribbon Week will run through Friday and area schools will include
drug awareness education as part of their curriculums during the week.

CIS students, Quanika Singletary, 10, and Kyeisha Harrison, 10, both
agreed that the event would set an example of how to be drug free and
Ariel Johnson, 10, said that she believed the drug awareness week
would show kids that they should not do drugs when they grew-up.

"If you didn't know about drugs, now you know," said Harrison.

These students were fifth graders currently in the 21st Century
Afterschool Program located at the Ryce Center.

Bell said that she and her staff chose to have their First Annual
Fall Festival as a kick-off to Red Ribbon Week because she wanted to
share drug awareness with the community. She said the 21st Century
Afterschool Program educates their students year round on drug
awareness through their youth development classes and she wanted the
community at large to have a chance to be made aware as well. She
said that she thought the festival was a success and she also hoped
to involve more community partners for next year's event.

"Our goal is to push it into the community," said Bell about drug
awareness education.

Southwest Georgia Mental Health sponsored the activities for the CIS
Fall Festival.