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CCISD and Alliance Receive White House Drug Czar Awards
10/02/2006
CCISD PRESS RELEASE
Clear Creek Independent School District
2425 E. Main St.
League City, TX 77573
Contact: Carrie Ann Taylor
Public Information Coordinator
(281) 284-0020
cataylor@ccisd.net
Oct. 2, 2006
PR-2324
For Immediate Release
CCISD and Alliance Receive White House Drug Czar Awards
League City, TEXAS — The Office of National Drug Control Policy awarded a $100,000 Drug-Free Communities grant to the Clear Creek Independent School District and the Bay Area Alliance for Youth and Families (BAAYF) to support the third year continuation funding of their existing community coalition project.
Drug Free Community grants were awarded to 709 community-based coalitions nationwide to work with community leaders and others at the local level to prevent and reduce drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse among youth.
The Drug-Free Communities program provides grants of up to $500,000 over five years to community organizations that serve as catalysts for citizen participation in local drug prevention efforts. Coalitions are comprised of diverse groups of people, including community leaders, parents, youth, teachers, religious and fraternal organizations, health care and business professionals, law enforcement and the media.
BAAYF also received an additional $75,000 for a mentoring grant to assist Friendswood ISD and the Friendswood community in developing their own self-supporting community anti-drug coalition. This represents one of 17 new grants totaling $1.18 million awarded through the Drug Free Community Support Mentoring Program.
Members of the Friendswood community including Hazel Johnson, the former assistant superintendent of Friendswood ISD, Sherri Green, current assistant superintendent of Friendswood and Eric Price, criminal investigator with Friendswood Police Department have served as active members of the Bay Area Alliance for the past two years.
“This grant allows us the opportunity to work collaboratively with the Friendswood community to develop comprehensive efforts to prevent and reduce drug and alcohol abuse in youth in both of our respective communities,” said Julie Purser, Coalition Coordinator for the BAAYF.
The 107 new grantees (Drug Free Community and Drug Free Community Mentoring grants) were selected from 353 applicants through a competitive peer review process. To qualify for matching grants, all awardees must have at least a six-month history of working together on substance abuse reduction initiatives, have representation from twelve specific sectors of the community, develop a long-term plan to reduce substance abuse, and participate in a national evaluation of the Drug Free Community program.
“Nationally, youth drug use has declined by nearly 20 percent over the last three years,” said Office of National Drug Control Policy Director John Walters. “The tireless work of drug-free community coalitions across the nation is an important part of our prevention efforts and our recent success reducing youth substance abuse. The coalitions receiving new grants this year will help ensure that even more community organizations join the effort to keep our children healthy and drug-free.”
Created under the Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997, the Drug-Free Communities Program has earned strong bipartisan support from Congress and is one of President Bush's major funding priorities. In December of 2001, Congress passed and the President signed into law a five-year extension of the Drug-Free Communities Act.
For more information about the Bay Area Alliance for Youth and Families visit www.ccisd.net/alliance, or call (281) 284-0370.
—CCISD—
cataylor
