WEEK-LONG RED RIBBON CAMPAIGN

Anti-Drug Message Heard

MANATEE - Willie Cooper and his staff used to transform the arts and
crafts room of the east Bradenton Boys & Girls Club into a makeshift
cemetery every October.

They used to stage mock funerals to teach children and teenagers about
the deadly outcome from using drugs.

Even though it was intended to help raise anti-drug awareness as part
of the weeklong Red Ribbon Campaign, youngsters, ages 6 to 15,
shrugged the elaborate graveyard off as a prank aimed at celebrating
Halloween.

That didn't dissuade Cooper, who is club director of the
organization's east Bradenton location.

"They thought it was a haunted house," he said. "We're going to keep
doing it to let them know this is what happens when you use drugs."

Cooper and his staff already have a list of activities slated for this
year's Red Ribbon Week, which began Saturday and runs through Sunday.

With a different theme every day of the week, the children and
teenagers will wear dark shades one day to "fade out" drugs, Cooper
said. They'll learn about the dangers of drinking and driving, meet
law enforcement officers and other speakers who will talk about drugs
and the impact they can have on a young person's life, and the group
will help raise awareness by distributing red ribbons throughout their
neighborhood.

"More people open their eyes up during Red Ribbon Week," Cooper said.
"And we're trying to put that message across. The kids are getting the
message, and we've got to keep telling them - the more we tell them,
the more it sinks in that drugs are bad."

The national Red Ribbon Campaign was first launched in 1985, after
special agent Enrique Camarena of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency was
killed by a group of drug traffickers in Mexico City, according to
U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's Web site.

But the struggle to keep children and teenagers away from drugs
remains an uphill battle, according to Scott Toney, executive director
of the Substance Abuse Coalition of Manatee County.

"For youth development agencies, there will be a big push to let our
children know of these dangers," said Toney, who is also director of
operations for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Manatee County. "The
community needs to be aware that there is a problem out there."

Earlier this month, former Bayshore student Amberly Dana Gray, 17,
died after a 24-day coma apparently induced by a cocaine overdose,
family members said.

One day after Amberly's Oct. 6 death, a 15-year-old girl was taken to
Manatee Memorial Hospital for a suspected overdose. Relatives told
authorities they had found her passed out and unresponsive after she
had vomited in their Bayshore Gardens home.

"Our young kids today have the mentality, 'It's not going to happen to
me because I know what I'm doing,' " Cooper said. "Why can't they
learn from someone else's mistakes?"