This week, the Youth Advisory Board (YAB) at Creek has organized its annual Red Ribbon Week to bring awareness to drug abuse. For the YAB, it’s important to spread awareness about drug use, because it directly correlates to keeping students drug-free.
“Obviously, in high school, drug abuse is a crazy important topic,” junior YAB president Hailey Shim said. “This is important to the YAB because we’re a club centered around celebrating positivity and diversity. Drug abuse is a universal problem, and can be a giant obstacle in people’s lives.”
YAB organizes many different events at Creek, from programs like hot cocoa socials or goodie bags for finals weeks, to larger events like Ethnic Fest and Red Ribbon Week. Because of their commitment to student well-being, the club prioritizes events where they can make a positive difference.
“I think spreading awareness is the first step to anything, so hopefully the students can understand the dangers of drugs, but ultimately it is their choice,” Shim said. “By making this week an exciting way to spread awareness, I believe it will impact the community for the better.”
Red Ribbon Week, while an annual tradition at Creek, was started in 1980 by the National Family Partnership, according to their website. The original goal was to get more parents, who were concerned about drug use, involved in the dialogue around the issue. The Red Ribbon symbol, which began being circulated in 1985, stands for a person’s longline commitment to raising drug use awareness.
Now, the event occurs from the week of Nov. 28 to Oct. 31 in high schools and other programs nationwide. Creek takes the event and personalizes it, by adding themes like the dress up days. Each day this week, students will be invited to participate in dress up days, as well as participate in ‘best friend’ quizzes on Tuesday, a showing of “Inside Out 2” in the Community Rooms on Thursday, and a drug quiz in front of Activities on Friday.
“Red Ribbon Week is important to the community because it helps ensure the students are in a position to keep themselves and others safe by spreading awareness about the dangers of drug use,” junior YAB Event Coordinator Meryl Walsh said. “Creek students have a lot of community engagement, and this knowledge is carried with them.”
Walsh also emphasized that by helping Creek students understand more about drugs, the rest of the community around the school will be more aware as well.
“When [students] go out into the community and the world after high school, they spread their ideas and values with those around them,” she said. “When those values support drug prevention, it helps promote that idea outside of the school.”
According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, 62 percent of 12th graders have abused any type of drug, and 50 percent of teenagers have misused a drug at least once. In Colorado, teenagers are 37.4 percent more likely to have used drugs in the last month than the average American teen. Because of these statistics, the YAB is motivated to make a difference.
“Anyone can create change,” Shim said. “Creek has such a positive, united student body, so I believe that we can all work together to create change.”
