GRANT PROMOTES DRUG AWARENESS

A $7,500 provincial government grant will assist Langley School
District teach Grade 7 students drug awareness.

Langley Township Mayor Kurt Alberts on Monday presented the cheque to
Leslie Klein, program co-ordinator for the school district's
Community Methamphetamine Response Funding Program.

The grant will pay in part for the drug and alcohol worker who will
teach students about the dangers of methamphetamine.

Alberts said the Grade 7s were felt to be the most vulnerable, since
they were making the transition from elementary school to high school.

The program will also re-inforce the message the students got two
years earlier through the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education)
Program for Grade 5 students in the district.

Alberts said the Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce and the RCMP
will also be involved in the program, and the Sunrise Rotary Club has
raised funds for a documentary that will be used with the Grade 7
program.

"In today's world, it is appropriate to say: It takes a village to
raise a healthy child," Klein said.

Klein said the district already has a counsellor working with the
Grade 7 and the response has been good.

"We are finding. . . that the parents are finding it very
useful."

She said parents appreciate have another adult on side, because
parents have trouble talking to their children about drugs.