Youth, parents gather to address underage drinking

VERNON — About 100 youth, parents and community members attended Vernon Coalition’s Town Hall Meeting at Glen Meadow Middle School to address youth drinking underage.

April was Alcohol Awareness Month and communities around Sussex County, state and the nation met to bring awareness to the trends, dangers and newest brain science surrounding underage drinking. Food was provided by Smokey’s, notepads by The Copy Center and music by Glen Meadow School’s own, “Brass Menagerie.”

This event was the second Town Hall Meeting to be held by the Vernon Coalition and they look forward to more of these community gatherings which offer Vernon the opportunity to be part of the solution to underage alcohol and other drug use among teens.

The Vernon Coalition was formed after several heroin overdose deaths in Vernon in 2010. They are in their second year of a five year federally funded grant and work in the Vernon community to address underage alcohol and other drug use in Vernon youth.

Attendees learned that illegal drug use usually begins with underage drinking and that parents are the number one best prevention tool that youth have. Parents and youth also learned about the Underage Drinking Ordinance in Vernon and 19 other Sussex County municipalities which holds youth responsible for drinking underage with associated fines and loss of license.

Glen Meadow students were recognized for participating in Center for Prevention and Counseling’s alcohol awareness month public service announcement contest, “Don’t Hurt your Hippo, keep your mind free of alcohol, it’ll think better!”

At the end of the evening, four hippopotami were raffled off to remind attendees of the importance of keeping the hippocampus in the brain healthy by avoiding underage drinking and any other drug use.

For more information on The Vernon Coalition, contact Annmarie Shafer at the Center for Prevention and Counseling, Newton at 973-383-4787 or annmarie@centerforprevention.org. Also find the Vernon Coalition on Facebook and @vernoncoalition on Twitter.