Members of the Fayette County Youth Prevention Coalition took part in the “Santa for Seniors” program on Friday, Dec. 17.
The local Youth Coalition is a group of students from Washington Court House and Miami Trace high schools who work to help prevent substance abuse in the community, as well as help with peer-to-peer prevention.
In their first meeting of the school year, they decided that they wanted to participate in helping the senior citizens of the community through some form of Christmas gift-giving project. Through the brainstorming process, they found that the Community Action Commission of Fayette County already had a program called Santa for Seniors, which was led by social services coordinator, Judy Havens.
Santa For Seniors is a program in which individuals in the community can turn in the name of a senior they believe would enjoy getting a Christmas gift who may not receive one otherwise. With the help of Havens and their adult-ally, Maddi Wallace, they began collecting donations for Santa For Seniors and, on Friday, Dec. 17, they packed 30 gifts to be passed out to seniors in the community.
The mission statement for The Fayette County Prevention Coalition is: the coalition “will create a unified community response to prevent youth substance abuse and support the development of effective community programs to promote a safer, healthier and drug free Fayette County.
