`I'M SO AFRAID -- SEEING PEOPLE'S LIVES JUST FADE'

Here are excerpts from the essays written by fifth-graders at Edward Heston
Elementary School.

When I walk the streets I see people who could have terrific lives, but
they are happier doing drugs. I'm not going to destroy my future. I can do
more with my life than killing myself with drugs. I am 10-year-old and when
I put myself in that position, I feel so sorry for them.
- -- Chanel Joynes

I want drug dealing to stop because one of my friends got shot over that.
He was walking down the street and he was looking at the dealers and they
said "Get out of here, leave!" He kept looking and got shot. That's why I
want it to stop. Drugs are getting people killed. One time my brother's
friend got shot because he was working for the drug dealers and he didn't
bring back the right amount of money. He was 13 years old and I went to his
funeral.
- -- Jonathan Ross

I see them every day. Where I walk and where I play. Sometimes I'm so
afraid -- seeing people's lives just fade. Drugs take you out of this world
soon. They destroy families and leave a neighborhood in ruin.
- -- Tiffany Harrison

In June of last year, I was over my grandma's and grandpa's house. My mom
was at work. My mom got home and there was a bullet laying on the couch. It
came through the window, hit the ceiling and landed on the couch. My mom
called the police. I want my neighborhood to change.
- -- Jonathan R. Vann

I live in a terrible neighborhood. This is not what I want. What I see
every morning, afternoon and night is trash on the streets, young teen-age
men selling drugs and graffiti on the walls everywhere I
look. I want peace on earth everywhere, but especially in my neighborhood.
- -- Michele Coker