Last week Jim Godbout brought in and I handed out at the meeting small red ribbon pins to be worn this week because it is Red Ribbon Week. What is Red Ribbon Week and what are its origins? Please read the following supplied to me by Jim.
Red Ribbon Week is an important tradition for the drug prevention
community, and especially for the DEA. The event that has
become a national symbol of drug prevention began as a grassroots
tribute to a fallen DEA hero, Special Agent Enrique Camarena. The
National Red Ribbon Campaign was sparked by the murder of DEA
Special Agent Camarena by drug traffickers. In March of 1985, Camarena’s
Congressman, Duncan Hunter, and high school friend Henry Lozano,
launched Camarena Clubs in Imperial Valley, California, Camarena’s home.
Hundreds of club members pledged to lead drug-free lives to honor the sacrifices
made by Camarena and others on behalf of all Americans. From these clubs
emerged the Red Ribbon Week Campaign.
Today, Red Ribbon Week is nationally recognized and celebrated, helping to
preserve Special Agent Camarena’s memory and further the cause for which he
gave his life. The Red Ribbon Campaign is a symbol of support for DEA’s and
America’s efforts to reduce demand for drugs through prevention and education
programs. By wearing a red ribbon during the last week in October, Americans
demonstrate their ardent opposition to drugs, and pledge to live drug free lives.
Thank you all for wearing your red ribbon pins this week. I also want to thank you all for participating in our club process to narrow the focus of our efforts to fight drug abuse and addiction. I am guessing the process may have been a little touchy-feely for some of you, but I think it was important to decide, as a club, where we want to focus our energies related to this hugely important issue. The input from all club members was really important and appreciated.
As I mentioned last week, on November 4, York County Sheriff Bill King will talk to us about the growing heroin problem in York County and on November 11 (Veteran’s Day) Matt Braun, who is a young man fighting addiction and he is willing to share his story with us, will be at our meeting. Please try to attend those meetings.
To let everyone know, our new drug awareness committee, which does not yet have a name, will have its first meeting next week to start to determine what to do with the direction provided to it by the club. We will keep everyone informed as things progress.
President Bill Kany kicked off the meeting promptly at 12:15 by leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Next up Sue Gajewski led the Four Way Test. Opening ceremonies concluded with Joe Bassett leading our group in prayer.
Lucie Kay introduced visiting Rotarians and guests. We warmly welcomed visiting Rotarian Kim Chilton from the Kennebunk Club and guest Pierre Giroux to our meeting.
We meet almost every week at 12:15 p.m. at the Run of the Mill.
Our Sergeant of Arms trio solicited happy dollars.
Matt Simmons was happy that his son was selected to play on the AAU under 9 team; Jim Godbout gave 2 sympathy dollars for Keith and Bill having to sit through the Biddeford City Council meeting; Jeremy Ray was happy to report that a house was turned over to BHS and so the school and Rotary have another property for next week; CJ Dubois-Cote happily announced that her daughter Christine is engaged to be married; and Don Lauzier was happy to report that he plays at weddings for a fee!
Fines were as follows:
Diane LeBlanc for paying with a $100.00 bill; Sue Gajewski for not reciting the 4-way test;
Keith for winning the Good Shepherd Parish raffle; Joe Moreshead for parking out front;
Josh Ellis paid a $1.00 keg deposit; Karen Chasse for sitting out this week’s SAA;
CJ Dubois-Cote & Heather Maclean for being tardy; Kim Chilton for visiting our club;
Bill Kany for not silencing his phone last week; Karen Chasse & Mark Tuller for ordering cole slaw and not taking the fries that come with the meal; Fausto for forgetting to bring dictionaries to last week’s labeling event; Bernice Wood for not having the past presidents plaque updated with to reflect Karen’s & Ken’s term as president of our Club; and Denis Elie for saying to Jeremy “I never should have let you into this Club.”
The $100 Raffle is underway. Earl Goodwin has already sold 40 tickets. Please sell your tickets and turn in the money by next Wednesday, October 28th. If you don’t think that you’ll be able to sell your ticket let Karen Chasse or Earl know as soon as possible.
The Stuff the Bus food drive will be held on November 14th from 8-5. Our club will be manning the Biddeford Hannaford and Market Basket. Please consider volunteering your time. If you have any suggestions on how we can make this event successful and not stressful, please e-mail Lucie Kay.
The Community Service Committee will be meeting immediately after next week’s meeting on October 28th.
Bill thanked Diane for her help to label the dictionaries for the Dictionary project. Lucie was also recognized for her work getting the dictionaries out on the table in advance which certainly helped to expedite the labeling process! Thanks ladies!
Thank you Jim Godbout for distributing Red Ribbons to our Club. Wear your pin proudly to support Drug Awareness. The 2015 Red Ribbon theme is Respect Yourself. Be Drug Free. This week is Red Ribbon Week! For more information see: http://redribbon.org/theme/
This week we had a presentation on the drug overdose issue. Jim G. opened the discussion with a personal account of how this issue has impacted him over the years. He has a passion to make a change with addicts. And he explained how you never know where an addict comes from – all family types are affected by this overdose issue. There is often a vicious cycle of rehab, then back home, then back to rehab, and so on.
Jim told us a story about a Saco resident who was a teen in the 70’s, had to raise all his siblings, experienced many deaths in the family, used lots of alcohol and drugs on a daily basis, lost many friends to addiction but is alive today because having a job and going to work saved this person. Education and mentoring made a difference in this person’s life. Let’s work together to make job readiness available today. Thank you to Jim for sharing this very personal story with us.
Andy G. explained that we need to decide as a club where we want to focus our time and resources on the drug abuse issue. He told us about the three levels of prevention:
Primary – initiatives focused on the community as a whole, the general population.
Secondary – initiatives focused on an at risk population.
Tertiary – initiatives focused on people and groups already working with addicts and families of addicts.
Many Rotarians wanted to share their stories about what addiction means to them but Andy asked us to hold off on those for now so we could move on to figuring out where our club wants to go regarding drug abuse.
Andy asked everyone to write what we think our club should focus on and then place our sticky notes on the proper poster for primary, secondary or tertiary. We all took time to do this and Andy will compile all our thoughts for discussion next week.
Bill suggested we develop and ad hoc committee to work on these ideas. Thirteen Rotarians volunteered for this committee: Andy G., Mark T., Jim A., Heather M., Karen, Keith, Joe, Bernice, Paul, Jim G., Jeremy, Fausto and Bill.
The members of the club who attended last week's meeting helped us to start the process of establishing a club strategy to address the issue of drug abuse and addiction in our area. Led by Andy Grief, each club member wrote down his or her preferences for dealing with the growing epidemic of drug addiction in southern Maine. All of our responses were stuck on larger sheets on the walls supplied by Andy. The goal would have been to let everyone read each other's suggestions and then ask questions about the answers, but we ran out of time. The group agreed to keep the process going this week. This process is really important to the club so I would encourage everyone to try to make the meeting next week.
Andy was nice enough to transfer our responses to a typed sheet which I then emailed to everyone. Please review those responses prior to this week’s meeting and develop any questions you may have about the suggestions of others. Our goal at this week’s meeting will be to narrow our focus on how we can best address the problem of drug abuse. We can the turn our club selection(s) over to the new committee which can further refine our strategy.
This interactive process is a really healthy and collaborative way to develop our club plan. Imagine that you are building a doghouse. Do you just run to the lumber yard and buy some wood, nails and paint and then start cutting, or do you come up with a plan with dimensions, a material list and develop order in which you will build your dog’s new home? Well, we are coming up with the plans right now. While we all feel more productive when we are actually cutting boards and pounding nails, if we don't develop a plan we end up wasting time and money and coming up with a doghouse that isn't big enough or simply falls down. Measure twice and cut once is what they say. Let's lay the proper foundation as a club that we can then all rally around. It may be a little slower process than we like but it should be more effective in the end.
If you have any doubt that drug addiction is a real problem in this country, take a look at these statistics shared by Karen Chasse who recently attended the Coastal Healthy Communities Project Alliance meeting. These numbers really make you think.
· In Maine, heroin overdose deaths increased from seven in 2011 to 57 in 2014. (Source: CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report)
· 2.6 out of every 1,000 US residents 12 and older used heroin in the years 2011-2013; A 63% increase in use and a 90% increase in abuse or dependence since the years 2002-2004. (Source: CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report)
· People who are addicted to narcotic painkillers are 40 times more likely to misuse heroin. (Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
· Maine DEA Heroin Case Trends: 69 cases in 2011, 113 in 2012, 223 in 2013, 276 in 2014 (2014 has a star next to it so I think that was not the full years numbers). Interestingly, the narcotic cases have gone from 232 in 2011, 210 in 2012, 89 in 2013 and 73 in 2014 and the narcotic cases have also decreased thanks to Drug Take Back days from 386 in 2011, 376 in 2012, 294 in 2013 and 159 in 2014.
· According to the 2013 Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey, of the high school students in CHCC’s service area:
o 7.4% have used a prescription drug in the past 30 days without a doctor’s prescription (22.7% have used marijuana)
o 22.6% believe it is “sort of easy” or “very easy” to get prescription drugs (57.4% for marijuana)
o 13.5% perceive there is “no risk” or “slight risk” of harm (58.6% for marijuana)
Again, please make every effort to make the meeting on October 21st. We value everyone's voice and we want to hear from you.
We did not have a guest speaker this week. Rather, Andy Grief facilitated a strategic planning session following last week’s brainstorming session. The goal was for the Club to reach a consensus about how to devote our time and financial resources to combat the heroin epidemic that is plaguing our communities. We spent the first part of the meeting clarifying the brainstorming ideas coming out of last week’s meeting. Next we grouped these ideas into common themes. Then we identified the themes namely, the ideas focused on
1. Enforcement/Treatment;
2. Awareness/Education; and
3. Secondary/Tertiary Prevention.
Finally, after discussion and sharing personal stories we voted and selected awareness and education as the focus of our group’s efforts.
Thank you to this year's Board of Directors for your leadership of our club: (front row, l-r) Laurie Jo Ready, Treasurer; Bernice Wood, Secretary; Bill Kany, President; Lucie Kay, President-Elect; Jackson Brown, Vice President: (back row, l-r) Susan Gajewski, Asst. Treasurer; Peggy Bean, Asst. Secretary; Andy Grief, Director; Joe Moreshead, Director; Rob Moody, Director; and Ken Farley, Past President.
Peggy Bean needs more volunteers! Please let Sarah Neault know if you are available to serve as the Tack Reporter on October 14 and October 21. Thanks.
Invocation: Joe Bassett
PROGRAM IDEA???? PLEASE CONTACT Brian Dallaire, PROGRAM CHAIR or a member of the Program Committee. Remember it is the responsibility of every member to help get Programs for our meetings.
Fill up those green bags. If you need more bags and/or labels, just let Julie Villemaire know and she can hook you up…no charge!
Simple fill with returnables and drop off at any Hannaford.
Alternately, if you already have a CLYNK account of your own, you can designate you funds as a donation. Hit the Donate button and search for Rotary and you'll find our account.
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