Hopkins Community Coalition Leader Steps Down

Hopkins Community Coalition: One Voice will soon be losing one of its leaders

Project Coordinator Brenda Badger announced last week that she’d be stepping down to take a position with the Anoka-Hennepin School District, serving as the district’s wellness/SHIP grant coordinator within its Department of Community Education.

“This has been a very difficult decision, yet one that I believe will better fit my family life and professional goals,” Badger wrote in Thursday’s e-mail announcement.

The Hopkins Community Coalition is drug-prevention effort. School Board directors on the coalition when it sought money from the district after its grant expired.

But Badger is leaving the coalition in a good position. Organizers are setting up the infrastructure necessary to implement a Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant it received as a subgrantee through the Minnesota Department of Human Services' Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division.

The $150,000 phase one portion of the grant will run through June 2013 and primarily involve assessments, capacity building and planning, Badger told Patch. Funding for the second phase will depend on what happens during phase one. That phase will last up to two years. 

The grant will focus on three main measurements around alcohol abuse: Past 30 day use among sixth through 12th graders, binge drinking among ninth through 12th graders and Binge drinking among 18- to 25-year-olds.

The coalition has posted job openings for a “SPF-SIG grant/coalition coordinator” and for a “SPF-SIG grant assistant.”

Hopkins is one of only eight communities in the state to receive the grant, Badger said.

"I'm still sort of awestruck that we were chosen," she said. "There's only so much prevention funding out there these days, and we scored on this one."

Badger’s last day will be Feb. 24.

“I will miss the great relationships I have formed here in Hopkins—but will always speak with One Voice!” Badger wrote in the e-mail announcement.