SEEING RED

Students Across Vacaville Focus On Anti-Drug Message

Students across Vacaville are dressing in red this week, from red
T-shirts to red ribbons.

But these students aren't posturing for gang affiliation. Red, at
least for this week, carries a much more positive and challenging
meaning. For this week, red symbolizes a student's pledge to stay away
from drugs as a part of Red Ribbon Week.

Nearly 80 million people, mostly youth, participate in Red Ribbon Week
and Vacaville students are among them, seeing red and spurning drugs.

Local middle and elementary schools have gone all-out for the event,
holding door-decorating contests, integrating drug-free lessons into
daily school lessons and sponsoring lunch-time activities to entertain
and educate.

"Even at this age, they are going to be tempted," Sierra Vista
Elementary School Principal Eldridge Glover said. "If you instill in
them the confidence to say no, it will take them a long way."

Monday, the crew from the 129th Rescue Wing at Moffett Air Force Base
landed their Pavehawk helicopter in the park adjacent to Sierra Vista,
thrilling students and teachers alike.

At Jepson Middle School, the anti-drug leadership group, Club Live,
has a slew of activities planned for the week.

But more than the events, what students gain most from the week is the
persistent message of the benefits of living a life without drugs.

"Drugs can really hurt you," Sierra Vista sixth-grader Jose Cuevas,
11, said. "And if your friends try to get you to do something that
hurts you they are not really your friends."

Classmate and fellow student council member Alexis Aguirre, 11, agreed
with Cuevas, saying the activities of Red Ribbon Week and the DARE
program have given students the strategies to turn down drugs.

While both said they are confident they will be able to walk away
whenever they encounter temptation, they agreed it will be difficult -
particularly as they enter middle school with hundreds of new students.

"Next year it will be like we're in kindergarten again," Aguirre said.
"It's probably easier to talk about saying no than it is to do it,
especially if it is people you've known all your life."

But they said they are up to the task, knowing from Red Ribbon
activities the harmful effects of drugs.

Aguirre's and Cuevas' thoughts are echoed by students across the
district, from Alamo to Markham to Vaca Pena, who have pledged as a
part of Red Ribbon Week to stay drug free."Drugs ruin your life. You
can have a lot of things planned, and drugs will mess them up,"
Aguirre said.