Southeast Missouri Drug Free Communities Coalition

Mission Missouri is beginning its seventh year as lead agency in the Southeast Missouri Drug Free Communities Coalition, funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, with members from 12 sectors of the community including law enforcement, healthcare, schools, faith, media, parents, youth, governmental agenices, agencies working with youth, civic and volunteer groups, business, and other organizations involved in reducing substance abuse. The purpose of the coalition is to reduce substance use among youth and, over time, reduce substance abuse among adults by addressing the factors in a community that increase the risk of substance abuse and promoting the factors that minimize the risk of substance abuse. In addition, we are to establish and strengthen collaboration among communities, public and private nonprofit agencies, and Federal, State, and local governments to support the efforts of community coalitions to prevent and reduce substance use among youth.

One of the strong coalition member groups has been the Scott County Sheriff's Office. Their team has created a Facebook page for the Southeast Missouri Drug Free Communities Coalition among many other activities. In an effort to draw more families to the Facebook page for information about prevention and the coalition, the Sheriff's office included a coloring contest page in the 3,300 Halloween bags that were delivered to all Scott County Kindergarten through 4th Graders. The coloring contest (flyer attached) required parents and children to go to the coalition Facebook page and color in the right colors of the coalition logo. On the back of the contest submission the child would include a description of what the logo represented to them (with the help of parents, of course!) We were able to award nine $25 Wal-mart gift cards to the winners. These young people were presented their gift cards and had their pictures made with Sheriff Rick Walter and Shawn Wood of the Sheriff's Office at Mission Missouri on Tuesday, November 22, 2011. We encourage all parents to go to the Facebook page for information about prevention activities as well as call 481-0505 and speak with Jane Pfefferkorn about becoming involved with the Southeast Missouri Drug Free Communities.