Red Ribbon mission: Staying off drugs

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Angelo Gelfuso, an eighth-grader at Geneva Middle School North, plants tulip bulbs outside the school with liaison officer Paul Van Dorn. (Sandy Bressner – sbressner@kcchronicle.com)

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If students at Geneva Middle School North attended school this week with their hair dyed bright red, it’d be all right. And the redder, the better. 

Most students, however, chose to wear red hats anyway. 

This week, students at the middle school participated in numerous activities, such as “Red Head Day” on Tuesday, to observe annual Red Ribbon Week, which takes place at the end of October nationwide. 

Jennifer Stauter, student council adviser at the school, said middle school is a key time to provide students with the information that will help them make good, healthy choices and that’s why it’s so important for schools to participate in Red Ribbon Week.    

According to the Illinois Drug Education Alliance, Red Ribbon Week is the oldest and largest drug prevention campaign in the country. The Red Ribbon Campaign emerged from the efforts of clubs and coalitions that aimed to preserve the memory of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency who was killed in Mexico while he worked undercover to investigate a major drug cartel.    

In 1988, the National Family Partnership coordinated the first National Red Ribbon Week, with former President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, serving as honorary chairpersons. The NFP estimates that more than 80 million people participate in Red Ribbon events each year.   

Today, Red Ribbon Week is nationally recognized and observed, helping to preserve Camarena’s memory and further the cause for which he gave his life. It’s also become a symbol of support for the DEA’s efforts to reduce demand for drugs through prevention and education programs. The theme of this year’s Red Ribbon Week campaign is “Drug Free is the Key.”

“Being drug-free is the key to future success … it is the key to life,” said Paul Perrone, state coordinator for IDEA’s annual Red Ribbon program. IDEA sponsors the program in Illinois every October. 

Over the last 20 years, Red Ribbon Week has evolved into something bigger than the “Say No to Drugs” motto, he said.    

“The annual Red Ribbon campaign has become a national symbol of dedication of thousands of people championing the cause for healthier young people,” said Perrone, a health educator for 36 years. 

Larry Sidel, a counselor at C.F. Simmons Middle School in Aurora, said young people can be pressured into doing things that they didn’t want to do in the first place. 

“They need to understand that their lives are precious,” he said. “Students need to protect their lives.” 

Throughout Red Ribbon Week, which begins for the middle school on Monday, Sidel and his colleague Dave Hamilton will work with students in a lecture-discussion format and talk to them about peer pressure, why their lives are precious, and what they want to do with their lives.

Lisa Gillette, a health educator at Geneva High School and student advisor to SADD, said the school’s health curriculum includes a whole unit about drugs. She said the thing about the drug unit is that students go into it not knowing who to trust about drugs. 

“[Students] hear so many different things about drugs from different sources that they become distrustful of adults on the subject, thinking that we are going to lie to them and use scare tactics,” said Gillette, who doesn’t believe scare tactics work in the long run. “We have to talk with kids like they are adults and teach them how to think for themselves, not what to think.”

Red Ribbon Week helps students see that being a “normal teenager” doesn’t mean going out on the weekends and engaging in unhealthy behaviors, she said. 

“When teens are so used to a certain group of friends, they tend to see those behaviors as the ones that they think all teens do,” Gillette said. “But if we can show them that not everyone is drinking all of the time, then more kids feel comfortable saying ‘no’ and avoiding those situations, while still feeling like a ‘normal teen.’ ”

What some schools are doing for Red Ribbon Week

National Red Ribbon Week generally takes place the last full week in October, with the weekends before and following the last full week included as appropriate celebration dates.  Read below to see what some area schools are doing to observe Red Ribbon Week. 

• St. Charles North High School students wore Red Ribbon bracelets and dedicated their 411 day to discussing issues surrounding substance abuse.  

• Geneva High School will hold a candlelight vigil at 7 p.m. Sunday, in front of city hall, where people will speak about why they remain drug-free. Last weekend, students in SADD and students from Geneva Middle School North hung red ribbons throughout downtown Geneva.

• Geneva School District 304 held a district-wide food drive last week for the Geneva Food Pantry. Signs in support of Red Ribbon Week were displayed in front of schools, and students and staff wore red ribbons and students signed pledge banners.

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