By Marisa Ellis
Staff Writer
People Attaining Complete Equality students hosted Red Ribbon Week from Oct. 20-24 to inform Costa students of the dangers of drugs and alcohol abuse.
Over the course of the week, PACE hung posters around the school. PACE also chose the theme “Dead End” for this year’s Red Ribbon week.
“‘Dead End’ shows people that there is nothing positive about doing drugs, and drug abuse only leads to a dead end,” PACE member Shannon Hancock said.
In addition to holding events at Costa, six PACE members went to Manhattan Beach Middle School at lunch on Oct. 21 to speak to students about Red Ribbon Week.
“We explained how we deal with drugs and alcohol at Mira Costa,” PACE member Samantha Mausner said. “MBMS students were really responsive to what we had to say, and I think they really enjoyed us coming.”
On Oct. 23, PACE students held an assembly where guest speaker Tyler Durman talked about howstudents can lead a meaningful life while briefly touching on drugs and alcohol.
“The idea was to help students make choices in life and consider the consequences that may come from bad choices,” PACE advisor Dr. Rocky Wilson said. “Duram conveyed this message in such a different way then we have seen in the past by not talking about drugs and alcohol the whole time.”
According to Hancock, students informed PACE members that past assemblies were uninteresting and ineffective. As a solution, Costa Principal Dr. Ben Dale suggested that PACE use Durman for its Red Ribbon Week assembly as a solution to the problem. Durman also spoke during this year’s freshman orientation.
According to PACE students, although Durman’s presentation was affective, PACE is planning on having a different group of speakers for next year’s Red Ribbon Week Assembly in order to provide variety of speakers for Costa students.
“This year’s assembly was great,” PACE member junior Veronica Chen said. “PACE is not looking to impact every student, but just being able to help out one person’s life is incredible.”
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