STUDENTS HELP TO RAISE FUNDS FOR D.A.R.E.

EXETER - A fund-raiser co-sponsored by Exeter police and Exeter Pizza Hut
dares families to spend quality time together all while "Helping Friends"
and encouraging kids to make healthy choices.

And students from Lincoln Street School will be playing an integral part in
the initiative.

This spring, LSS students will be selling Pizza Hut "Helping Friends" value
cards to family and friends throughout the remainder of the school year.
The cards provide patrons with the value of six coupons for a free, medium,
one-topping pizza with the purchase of a large pizza and six coupons for $5
off any purchase of $15. For every $8 card sold, $5 of the proceeds will
benefit Exeter's Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program.

The D.A.R.E. program, which has roots all over the globe but is funded by
individual communities, has been in the Exeter schools for several years,
arming kids with information and skills they need to live drug- and
violence-free lives. And for nearly just as long, Exeter Pizza Hut, located
at 100 Portsmouth Ave., has been supporting the program in various ways,
according to manager Judy Hughes.

"It's something important to me personally as well as to Pizza Hut as a
corporation," said Hughes. "Anything to keep kids off drugs and making
healthy choices." That's just what D.A.R.E. aims to do.

Through its program, D.A.R.E. provides both an after-school recreational
program and in-class educational program for kids. Proceeds from this
fund-raiser will go toward supplies primarily for the after-school program,
which allows kids some fun time with officers going on bowling, swimming
and ice skating outings, among other activities.

"If the fund raising went away, the program itself would still exist, but
it 's the after-school program that would die," said Detective and Juvenile
Officer Frank Winterer.

This, he said, would be a grave disservice to the community.

"It builds relationships between officers and kids," Winterer said of the
after-school program, "and it gets kids to see us in a more human light.

The in-school program provides a different, but equally important service
to fifth-graders with its 17-lesson curriculum. The program, which Winterer
calls a "life skills" course, spans topics including ways to say no to
different kinds of peer pressure, conflict resolution, self-esteem,
influences of the media, how drugs and alcohol affect the mind and body,
and good decision-making.

Cooperative Middle School student Erin Benotti, who was in the program last
year, said D.A.R.E. helped her solidify her philosophy about drug and
alcohol choices.

"Before I began this program, I knew I would say no to drugs and alcohol,
but I wasn't exactly sure how to without getting myself into trouble or if
I would even have the courage to say no, especially if the people peer
pressuring me were my friends," said Erin, a sixth-grader. "I feel that
this program has good potential and kids who go through the D.A.R.E.
program are a lot less likely to give in to peer pressure than kids who
have never been through it."

But the endeavor is about more than just fund raising for D.A.R.E., says
Louise Benotti, a member of the program's Board of directors and Erin's
stepmom. By supporting this fund-raiser, she said, families are encouraged
to spend dinnertime together.

"Dinner has always been a time to regroup and reunite with your kids and
today it's hard to do that," she said. "As a parent, this valuable time can
serve as a vehicle to interact with your children by sharing stories,
working out problems, and ultimately even transitioning from the outside
world back to the shelter of one's home life."

For information, call Louise Benotti at 775-7977.