Azle’s Red Ribbon Week begins Monday, which is nationally celebrated from Oct. 23 to Oct. 31. The National Family Partnership (NFP) held the first Red Ribbon Week in 1985. It was originally held in response to the murder of DEA Agent Enrique Camarena. People wore red ribbons as a symbol to spread awareness of the dangers caused by drugs. Now at AHS, we do different things to spread awareness.
“In the past, student council made it about bringing awareness by either doing dress-up days and handing out candy, like ‘don’t be a dumb-dumb, don’t use drugs,’ but this year we added a way to get more involvement from teachers,” Student Council adviser Chad Cooke said. “We asked them to decorate their door with a saying or something that hit the theme scare away drugs.”
This year, teachers are able to help spread awareness by competing in a door decorating contest, and they get to decorate their doors with a spooky twist.
“Since it is October, the theme will be sort of spooky decorating type thing,” senior student body Vice President Jayden Saez said. “So, more Halloween spooky themes.”
Student Council is in charge of preparing the activities that take place during Red Ribbon Week. They put in time and effort to make sure students have fun while spreading awareness.
“We prepare for Red Ribbon Week by trying to promote that drugs are bad by having fun dress-up days for the entire week,” junior StuCo Director of Health Lance Smith said. “to show people, like, ‘wake up and say no to drugs’ or, ‘peace out, drugs,’ you know, to imply that we don’t want drugs in our life because they’re bad for people.”
Red Ribbon Week is a great way to spread the word about the negatives of drug usage, but for it to be effective, people have to take it seriously.
“I think it can help people,” student body President Chloe Hennessy said. “I think if you take it seriously and you know the meaning and effects of the drugs and the things that it can do to people. I do think that it helps people, and helps them have some perspective of those who might have people in their family who do those things.”
While the dress-up days and door decorating is a fun way to participate in Red Ribbon Week, students also have to remember how this program started.
“It’s a big cause,” Smith said, “I think a lot of high schoolers—a lot of people around the world struggle with it because drugs are a big world problem.”
