OCFC’s Amazing Chase 2010 was such a great time! We had seven teams participate in a wild scavenger hunt throughout Oregon that sent them on to different local businesses to complete wacky challenges and brainteasers. The teams had a time limit to complete 10 challenges and earn points, collect bonus points, and make it back to the Eastern YMCA on time. All teams succeeded in this crazy Chase! The top three teams that earned the most points went on to the final challenge; The WipeOut Zone. This challenge was very Double Dare-like and messy! The top three teams, The Blue Sharks, Victorious Secret, and the Mad Dashers, battled it out, got messy and slimed, only to leave the ultimate winner…The Blue Sharks! They went home with the grand prize (and to take a shower).

Thank you to all of our teams that participated! We would also like to thank all of our community partners that sponsored our Amazing Chase. Your contributions and support help us to provide substance abuse prevention to the Oregon Community. We would like to thank all of the businesses in Oregon and all over Toledo who donated prizes to our event. Everyone that participated in the Chase went home with something! And last, but not least, a huge thank you to all of our volunteers! We could not have pulled off this event and given the teams an amazing time without your help! Thank you!!

Wow! What a fun, messy, and AMAZING time we had at this year’s Amazing Chase! Here is a video of the final challenge that our top three teams advanced to. Go Blue Sharks! Go Mad Dashers! Go Victorious Secret!

Amazing Chase 2010 WipeOut Zone

There is still time to register your team for OCFC’s Amazing Chase 2010!

AND…lucky for you, we are holding our first challenge…NOW!

Be one of the first 10 teams to sign up and get your registration fee waived. That means, you can register your Family or Adult team for FREE! This is our largest fundraiser of the year, so donations are still welcome.

Registration forms are available by clicking on Amazing Chase on the left or by emailing Danielle at danielle@ocfcohio.org. Hurry and complete your challenge today!

OCFC is excited to announce that we will be having our 3rd annual “Amazing Chase” on June 26, 2010!

Click here for event details and registration form!! If you can’t access the form, please click on the “Amazing Chase” link on the left-hand-side of our homepage.

We look forward to having you be part of this exciting day!

On Friday, April 30, 2010 we held our Dead for a Day event at Clay High School. Dead for a Day is completely planned and organized by our Youth Board. Dead for a Day is designed to impact students about the effects of drugs and alcohol on their friends and loved ones. We hold this event in hopes that this experience can influence the youth of our community not to participate in alcohol and drug related activities and to make better choices.

Dead for a Day is an experience meant to portray to students what it would be like if a friend was to die from an alcohol or drug related incident. To involve students in this experience, we had students volunteers to be “dead for a day” and during their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd hour they were called out and pronounced “dead.” They were given a t-shirt and a tombstone that told their cause of death. They then had to carry on throughout their normal day of classes, but without speaking to fellow students, teachers, or staff and making eye contact or facial expressions. Teachers were asked not to call on the “dead” students and to basically act as if they were not there. The “dead” students ate lunch in a designated area of the cafeteria, the “cemetery,” and could not speak to other “dead” students. This was all done to create an illusion that the person is no longer there, in order to show students the horrible effects drugs and alcohol can have on those closest to them. We were especially hopeful that this event would impact the students because it was held the day before Prom.

At the end of the school day, there was a pep rally to recognize spring sports participants. We were asked to talk about Dead for a Day and to give a little background on why we chose to put on an event like this. The Youth Board did an amazing job speaking about why this event is so important and then they also let a “dead” student and an “alive” student talk about what they experienced throughout the day. We received very positive feedback and I think the students understood what we were trying to accomplish. The Youth Board is already planning how they can make next year’s Dead for a Day event even better!

How to Raise a Drug-Free Kid: The Straight Dope for Parents is a book we would like to recommend to parents.  The book is by Joseph A. Califano, Jr., the founder and chairman of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.  Mr. Califano has a rich history in prevention, and he launched the Anti-Smoking campaign in the late 1970s.

Synopsis via barnesandnoble.com:

Nearly every child will be offered drugs or alcohol before graduating high school. The good news is that a child who gets to age twenty-one without smoking, using illegal drugs, or abusing alcohol is virtually certain never to do so…and kids who learn about drugs from their parents are much likelier to resist these temptations.

Based on nearly two decades of research at The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, How to Raise a Drug-Free Kid: The Straight Dope for Parents offers advice and information on how to prepare your child for the crucial decision-making moments and on many of the most daunting parenting topics, including:

• When and how to talk to your kids about drugs and alcohol
• How to respond when your kid asks, “Did you do drugs?”
• How to know when your child is most at risk
• How to prepare your teen for the freedoms and perils of college

If you would like to borrow a copy, we have one at our office, so give us a call 419.720.1708 if you are interested. 

Or, check it out at Amazon.com, by clicking here!

On Saturday, April 24 our Youth Board participated in Global Youth Service Day. Global Youth Service Day is a world-wide day of community service. (Visit gysd.org for more information). We were supposed to help the Bethany House with a downtown Toledo block clean-up, however, due to the rain we had a change of plans. Instead, we went to the Lucas County Fairgrounds to help Planned Pethood set up for their annual rummage sale fundraiser. Planned Pethood is a local pet rescue and adoption agency that relies heavily on their volunteers for support. Every year for their rummage sale, people begin dropping off donations the weekend before the event and then volunteers are responsible for unloading boxes, organizing, and pricing all of the items. I was able to provide 13 student volunteers to help that day. We spent three hours unloading boxes of donated clothing, sorting them into piles of specific sizes, putting the clothing on hangers, and arranging them onto racks according to size. When we began, there were boxes stacked past our heads and trash bags full of clothes on the floor. When we left, we had emptied all of the boxes and all but 10 trash bags. I was amazed at the progress we made in only three hours! After we were finished helping Planned Pethood, we went to the Toledo Zoo for a lunch to thank all of the Global Youth Service Day volunteers. The students spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Zoo. The students had a terrific time and are looking forward to planning our next community service activity.

“Here at OCFC, we do a tremendous amount of collaborating with the Oregon City Schools - from our Youth Board to Red Ribbon Week, we spend a lot of time with the youth. Also, Oregon City Schools does a great job reciprocating the efforts by partnering with OCFC for our events. Next Tuesday, the Oregon City Schools will be having a Community Forum to discuss the future of the schools. As a coalition, we want to support Oregon City Schools in any way possible. If you are available, we want to encourage you to attend. Here is the information from the district website (www.oregoncityschools.org):

An invitation to attend the Oregon City School District’s

COMMUNITY FORUM

On Tuesday, May 4, 2010 there will be a meeting for all citizens of the Oregon City School District to discuss the future of our schools.  The meeting will be held in the Clay High School Auditorium and begin at 6:00pm.

 Tuesday, May 4, 2010 

6:00pm

 Clay High School Auditorium

In the world of prevention a popular question is, “should Marijuana be a legal drug?”  Who are we kidding, that is a popular question outside of prevention.  Regardless, we wanted to share with you that a bill that would legalize medical marijuana in Ohio and allow certified users to grow the plant for personal medical use has been introduced in the state legislature, the Columbus Dispatch reported April 6.

The measure was introduced by Rep. Kenny Yuko and five cosponsors; the Drug Policy Alliance of Ohio helped draft the bill.

A medical-marijuana measure died in the state legislature last year; backers of the Yuko bill said the legislation has significant changes from the failed bill, SB-343.

Drug-Free Action Alliance and the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Association of Ohio (ADAPAO) do not support the legalization of marijuana as medicine based on legislative or voter initiative. Rather, marijuana should be subject to the same research, consideration and study as any other potential medicine, under the standards of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The Drug-Free Action Alliance has prepared a position paper on the subject of legalizing marijuana as medicine.  You can read the article by clicking here.

(The content of this article was found on JoinTogether.org)

(The link for the position paper: http://www.drugfreeactionalliance.org/documents/MarijuanaasMedicinePositionPaper.pdf)

A few weeks ago, OCFC conducted a survey about our coalition meetings.  The majority of you participated, and thank you for your help!  Next Thursday, April 8, OCFC will be having their next coalition meeting.  The meeting will feature a guest speaker – Dr. William Messer from the University of Toledo College of Pharmacy.  Dr. Messer chairs the Department of Pharmacology, and he is going to be talking about Prescription Drug Awareness.

Prescription Drug Awareness was one of the top vote-getters on the recent survey, and I hope many of you can join us for what will be a very informative discussion.

The Coalition meeting will start at 7:00 p.m. and will be in the basement of Bay Park Community Hospital (2801 Bay Park Dr., Oregon, OH 43616).  The meeting will last one hour and light refreshments will be provided.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.  Also, if you get a chance, please pass this along to other e-mail lists you may have.