Almost 50 young people from the Virgin Islands spent their entire Saturday at Eulalie R. Rivera Elementary School learning about the effects of alcohol abuse at the 2nd Annual Underage Drinking Youth Summit.
The St. Croix Unity Coalition and Grove Place Weed and Seed hosted the all day event which started at 8 a.m. and finished just shortly before 5 p.m. It was paid for by grants from the Law Enforcement Planning Commission, the summit gave kids from ages 12 to 17 a reason to say “no” to alcohol and ways to do it. Forums dealing with statistics about cancer, cirrhosis, and even death, youth were given several reasons not to pick up the bottle.
After opening remarks from Denise E.H. Lewis, president of SCUC, Lt. Thomas Hannah of the V.I. Police Department gave ghe young audience a somber personal story about losing two family members from alcohol abuse. Mouths dropped open and heads shook as he told of his sister who failed third grade three times due to alcohol use. She eventually succumbed to alcoholism and died at the age of 31 – as did his brother-in-law.
The kids were then divided into four groups, each group containing 10-15 students. The groups spent about 75 minutes discussing:
• “Leadership Development,” taught by Valerie Richardson from Maryland, who focused on teaching basic leadership skills. The participants were given different scenarios to test their skills, while Richardson explained how being a leader can affect whether one gets in the car with a drunk driver or decides to succumb to peer pressure.
• “Media Pros & Cons” was taught by SCUC member Alexis George, who gave an in-depth briefing about how the various forms of media can affect individuals. He used examples of social media platforms such as Facebook to illustrate his point that much of the media norm is changing, and that these social websites can have a powerful and lasting impact on youth. He then divided the groups to come up with a skit for an ad campaign to push youth to abstain from drinking.
• “Saying No to Alcohol but Yes to a Healthy Lifestyle” was co-taught by Maren Roebuck and Annette Scott from the Division of Health, and the Alcoholism and Drug Dependency Services of the Division of Mental Health. They gave an overview of the destructive health effects and statistics on alcohol related deaths and then divided the groups to create large paper advertisements, which would be laminated and used for future events.
• “Compliance Checks” was taught by Lewis and youth leader Deshea Gonsalves. They explained how SCUC and LEPC go to the stores and conduct compliance checks – a minor is sent into a store to buy alcohol and if they are successful, the store is given an educational warning. If the store fails a second time, it is fined $500. Student groups perform skits acting out the sting operations.
Lewis came up with the enhanced summit format after traveling to a four-day underage drinking summit in California last year with some youth participants. This year was scaled down due to a decrease in funding, but she has noticed a drop in businesses selling to minors.
“When we started this in 2009, 60 percent of the stores that we conducted compliance checks with were selling to underage youth, but now, only 33 percent are,” she said.
Although the summit was an all-day event, the participants seemed excited to be there. They received a free lunch, free backpacks loaded with goodies, and raffle tickets for the chance to win gift certificates to local stores. They also were given the chance to perform their advertising skits at the end of the day – with hopes that one of them might be good enough for a real television commercial.
Gonsalves, who has been involved for both years and takes part in the Compliance Checks, thought the turnout was great and loved being able to influence the young minds. At 17, she said that one person can make a difference.
The forum "does make a difference," she said. "It will influence kids and lets them see the positives and negatives to drinking.” When asked if she drank, she laughed, “Ha ha, yeah, I drink juice!”
Further information about the St. Croix Foundation and its sponsors can be found online at http://stcroixunitycoalition.org/, or calling Lewis at 340-719-3227.
