Redribbon day for effort to stop drugs

Peninsula parade fires youth with inspiration to stay clean

BY BARBARA FEDER

Mercury News Staff Writer

As she cheered on hundreds of chanting, pomponwaving children in
Saturday's Red Ribbon antidrug parade, Kathryn Lefevre clutched a handful
of crimson scraps emblazoned with the slogan: ``Keep your future bright
stay drugfree.''

She plans to sew the ribbons into a quilt to keep those watchwords close at
hand for herself she is a recovering addict and her three children.

``Drugs have ravaged this neighborhood,'' said Lefevre, who grew up in
Menlo Park's Belle Haven district. ``If we don't get the kids first, the
dope dealers will.''

That message was trumpeted Saturday as Menlo Park and East Palo Alto held
the seventh annual Red Ribbon parade and rally.

About 500 people, mostly elementary and middle school students, marched and
danced from Belle Haven School in Menlo Park to Bell Street Park in East
Palo Alto, carrying redandwhite balloons and cardboard signs proclaiming,
``Up with hope, down with dope!''

``It brings unity to the community,'' said East Palo Alto's Betty Guillory,
who participated in past parades when she worked for the Ravenswood school
district. ``The kids get so pumped up, and the schools reinforce that.''

Awaiting the marchers at the park were cheering neighbors and families,
free hot dogs and soda, antidrugmessage pens and other giveaways handed
out by local police. One discordant note, Menlo Park police officer Paul
Kunkel said, was a National Guard reservist who allowed kids to play with
unloaded M16s in one of the country's more volatile cities.

The rally is an important way to inoculate kids against peer pressure and
help them feel more comfortable around police, Kunkel said. ``It gives us a
positive, festive way to get closer to the kids, so they can have a chance
to see that police aren't the enemy.''

The parade and rally marked National Drug Awareness Week, also known as Red
Ribbon Week (Oct. 2331). The national campaign's theme commemorates
Enrique Camarena, a federal drugenforcement agent killed by Mexican drug
lords in 1985. Last week, Menlo Park and East Palo Alto students
participated in school rallies, making antidrug posters and listening to
talks by local police officers.

For Joanna Selu, 15, the barrage of antidrug exhortations was worthwhile:
``For kids struggling with drugs, maybe they'll get the message . . . Drugs
can kill you.''