SAFE Sponsors Virtual Red Ribbon Week at Glen Cove Schools

SAFE kicked off National Red Ribbon Week on October 19th within the Glen Cove School District. Red Ribbon Week is a national drug awareness campaign created in 1985 aimed at addressing the importance of substance abuse prevention. Given the Nation’s Opioid Epidemic, this week’s celebration of living healthy lifestyles is most significant.

Given the pandemic, Red Ribbon Week was offered virtually this year. SAFE Board of Directors and staff, SAFE Glen Cove Coalition volunteers, the Mayor’s office, the Glen Cove Police Department, School Administration, and the Glen Cove Youth Bureau all showed their support by participating in Red Ribbon celebrations in the community and in the District’s elementary schools and Finley Middle School. Students embraced the theme of living a healthy, drug-free lifestyle and created posters depicting their interpretation of living drug-free using this year's National RRW slogan is “Be Happy, Be Brave, Be Drug-Free”.

The ongoing partnership with the Glen Cove School District allowed SAFE, Inc, and the Glen Cove Youth Bureau to continue to educate the students on substance abuse prevention and making healthy choices. Every year, the Glen Cove Police Department also partners with the SAFE to educate our community & youth during Red Ribbon Week of the importance to stay drug-free.

Connolly School hosted a live Google Meet with Detective Karousos, who gave a 10-15 minute presentation on healthy choices, the importance of safety when taking medications, and the harmful uses of drugs. Gribbon School viewed a pre-recorded video of Detective Karousos on the same topic, but due to the younger students in Kindergarten-2nd, Detective Karousos geared his presentation more on healthy choices and to not take anything, such as candy-looking items from strangers, unless a student has permission from their parents. He also discussed the importance of playing sports and how being active can help keep students away from the potential pressure to get involved in making bad choices. As he stated, to “always speak to your parents, grandparents, or even your teachers about things that may bother you. Let your parents know how your day went in school and what you did or didn’t learn. Don’t keep secrets about things that you saw that were bad, always let an adult know”.

Landing and the Middle School, their students participated in Red Ribbon week by viewing a PowerPoint presentation created by the collaboration of the Glen Cove Youth Bureau’s Program Coordinator Carolina Guastella and SAFE’s Social Worker/ Lifeskills Facilitator Francesca Carbone. The powerpoint distributed background information on how Red Ribbon Week began, the events' mission of ‘encouraging children, families, and communities to live healthy, happy and drug-free lives’, and the importance of making good/ healthy choices by taking the pledge to stay drug-free.

Overall, by the prevention efforts made by utilizing our technology in today’s world, altered by the Pandemic, has allowed all parties involved to continue to keep Glen Cove safe with another year of prevention education for our youth.

SAFE, Inc. is the only alcohol and substance abuse prevention, intervention, and education agency in the City of Glen Cove. Its Coalition is conducting an opioid prevention awareness campaign entitled, "Keeping Glen Cove SAFE," in order to educate and update the community regarding opioid use and its consequences. To learn more about the SAFE Glen Cove Coalition please follow us on www.facebook.com/safeglencove or visit SAFE’s website to learn more about the Opioid epidemic at www.safeglencove.org