The Monroe County Coalition for Drug-Free Communities has recently seen some strong progress, hosting the first of several planned community forum events and earning recognition for an Operation Snowball program that keeps on rolling.

The coalition’s executive director, Monica Kirkpatrick, spoke positively about the “Start the Conversation: Vaping” event which took place at LifeChurchX May 6.

Featuring a collection of guest speakers, Kirkpatrick noted the strong turnout from local students and the quality exchange they were able to have with presenters.

“It was really encouraging to have so many students there,” Kirkpatrick said. “That really was the best part, that they were able to be there and be involved… Of course the speakers were fantastic. They were able to really tie in everything to the youth that were there, give them real, tangible ways to say “no” and different ideas and things to practice.”

She was especially pleased with the degree to which students participated during the presentation.

“The Q&A section was what I think surprised me the most,” Kirkpatrick said. “The students really took over that forum, which was great. I didn’t see that coming, but they had a lot of good questions. They had a lot of good insights. You could tell it was really something they were interested in, which is half the battle.”

As Kirkpatrick explained, this was the first of several planned forums funded through a grant the coalition has been able to receive.

The group plans to host at least one such forum each year, looking to provide an overview of a different topic each time.

“It’s not necessarily meant to do a huge deep-dive into a topic, but it’s like ‘Hey, how do we start talking to our kids about this? How do we start talking to the community about this?’” Kirkpatrick said. “Because a lot of people in our county don’t know that there’s a problem, or they don’t want to know.”

She explained that vaping was selected as the first forum topic as 80 percent of suspensions in local schools concern vaping.

While such suspensions include a sort of education on vaping, Kirkpatrick noted how this was a reactive approach to the issue, pointing to the forum and other coalition events as trying to take a more proactive route.

While the next forum of this kind is really planned for next year, Kirkpatrick said the coalition still has a few more events scheduled for later in 2025 – namely a retreat at Camp Wartburg that’s been requested by students who have been participating in the organization’s Project Snowball teams.

She also touched on the possibility of the coalition getting involved in presentations at local schools, and while she said there were some mixed feelings about that within the group – given the possibility of students simply disregarding the speaker they’re made to listen to – Kirkpatrick did note coalition plans to bring a keynote speaker to the area for school presentations during the drug-use prevention campaign known as Red Ribbon Week.

Kirkpatrick reiterated her hopes for the recent forum and other such events to garner more attention and support within the community.

“We’re still building our brand recognition,” Kirkpatrick said. “We’re still building who we are. We’d love to see more people next year just come and participate.”

She also discussed an “Excellence in Leadership” award recently presented to her and coalition Youth Director Christy Gardner by the Operation Snowball state organization.

Concerning progress with Monroe County’s Snowball initiative, she noted how the effort has grown from four Columbia students attending the Cebrin Goodman Teen Institute leadership program last year to a prospective group of 16 students attending this year, with representation among each of this county’s four high schools.

She commended Gardner for her work in getting students involved throughout the county and noted that, with the coalition being recognized with the award, it seems their efforts are going in the right direction.

“We have definitely caught the eye of the people at Operation Snowball,” Kirkpatrick said. “We’ve had a few focuses, but getting Snowball off the ground has been our main focus, so we’re very proud, of course, that our efforts are being recognized, and we’re creating a very solid foundation for our Monroe County Snowball team.”

For more information on the coalition, visit monroecoalition.org.