Dayton Gets Grant Money To Reduce Abuse

DAYTON - The Colum- bia County Coalition for Youth and Families is one of 60 organizations nation- wide to receive a Drug Free Communities grant from the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The grant money will bring $ 125,000 a year for five years, a total of $625,000, into the Dayton community to help reduce the use of drugs and alcohol by minors.

The coalition applied for this grant last year as well, but missed being chosen by one point on the scale. Grant applications are scored by peers and the 60 top-scoring grants receive funding from the drug control office.

"The grant writing process was very much a team effort with over 400 hours of work by several individuals to complete and submit the 122 page grant application" Columbia County Prosecutor Rea Culwell said in a press release.

Nancy Butler, who will be the program director for the Drug-Free Communities Coalition, said the requirements for the grant are strict - Times New Roman font with one-inch margins and a very specific format. Butler said if the grant is not written exactly the way it needs to be, it will not be accepted or reviewed. Accepted grants are then scored and priori- tized.

Now that the grant has been approved and funded, Butler and Project Coordinator Peggy Gutierrez said they will start working on developing their action plan.

"We are really excited to be one of only 60 communities nationwide to receive the award," Gutierrez said. "An- other cool feature is we will be developing a youth coali- tion as part of the program."

Gutierrez said receiving the grant reflects the com- mitment of the community and coalition members who helped make the grant pos- sible. She said the determination the team showed to obtain the grant helped keep the dream alive and inspired the team to reapply after being rejected last year.

Butler said the coalition recognizes issues in the Dayton community that the grant could help alleviate.

"As a community, we have to decide the steps we're going to take," Butler said. "We are very excited about (the grant)."

Butler said the coalition will focus on building the capacity to change the social norm and to reduce the avail- ability of drugs and alcohol to minors.

The Columbia County Health System will serve as the lead agency and fiscal agent for the grant.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy an- nounced $7.9 million in new grants this year according to the office website.

The Drug Free Communities Support Program is a federal grant program that provides funding to commu- nity based coalitions helping them to become more active- ly engaged in community change and to address the availability and accessibil- ity of drugs and alcohol to youth and to prevent youth substance use, according to a grant released by Butler.

Dayton Mayor Craig George said he is thrilled about the benefits the Day- ton community will receive from the grant and the programming that will come with it. George said like ev- ery other community, Day- ton does have problems, but this grant will be immensely beneficial in helping prog- ress toward solutions.

"It can't do anything but benefit the community," George said. "There is no perfect solution, but this is a great stride."