The Eastwick Press Newspaper

Eastern Rensselaer County's Community Newspaper

HAYC3 Receives National Recognition

By

news release
HAYC3’s Community Coalition has received recognition from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) with the award of a major U.S. grant. HAYC3 was named as one of only nineteen community coalitions in the entire nation to receive a Drug Free Communities (DFC) Mentoring Coalition Grant. One of the notable and exciting aspects about the grant is that HAYC3 is the only rural coalition awarded this grant. All of the others were urban communities. [private]“The recent announcement is both an honor and a validation of HAYC3’s successful work in the Hoosick area,” said HAYC3’s Executive Director Aelish Nealon.
“It’s an honor that our efforts to create a safe and healthy community have been recognized, and that we’ve done such a good job within our own community that this national organization feels we can and should mentor a larger city in accomplishing the same goal,” said Amanda Haar, Chairperson of the HAYC3 Community Coalition.
The two year $150,000 grant will be used by HAYC3 to mentor its partners in Troy. The HAYC3 Community Coalition will apply their experience and expertise to mentor and advise the much larger city of Troy in involving and engaging their community to prevent substance abuse among that city’s young people.
Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the ONDCP, adds, “For too many young people, the future is clouded by drug use, which inhibits their ability to remain healthy and safe and to achieve their full potential. We congratulate this coalition [HAYC3] on its work to raise a generation of young people equipped to remain drug free and ready to meet the challenges and successfully compete in the 21st century.”
The Drug Free Communities Act of 1997 created the DFC Program. Since 1998, ONDCP has awarded nearly 2,000 DFC grants to local communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, Palau, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.
For more information about the Office of National Drug Control Policy or the Drug Free Communities Support Program, visit www.WhiteHouse.gov/ONDCP.[/private]