PRINCETON, W.Va. – Many people celebrate the holidays with alcoholic beverages.
The dark side of that choice is impaired driving.
The consequences can be deadly, but a local organization is working to make sure everyone stays safe.
That’s because the holidays are meant for time with your loved ones and friends, and at Community Connections in Princeton, they hope it stays that way by reducing the number of impaired drivers on our roads.
This campaign has been running for the last 20 years.
It’s a partnership that includes Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), the Mercer County’s sheriff’s department, and a local community coalition.
Together, the hope is to raise awareness by tying a red ribbon to anything.
Some Mercer County students seem to be buying into the campaign.
“This was a really emotional time I’m not gonna lie. It’s one of those things where you see the young people come in, you know you can reach them in a different way. We can talk to adults all day long, but the fact is when you’re starting to reach young people and having that positive environment, then they can be the advocates for the change in the future. We’ve seen that. You know that policy is great. Policy is medicine, but young people are the advocates for everything that we need to have done,” said Greg Puckett, the executive director of community connections.
He is sharing the impact and seeing how these young people will be the change and the voice for this red ribbon awareness campaign.
This ribbon represents a life, serving as a reminder to have a great time during the holidays, but doing so responsibly.
Some of those young people, from mercer county technical education center’s law and public safety class, got a chance to do just that—raise awareness about preventing DUI.
Jonathan Wheeler says, “It means a lot to be able to protect my community and help teach my friends and my loved ones about the risks and the precautions of driving impaired.”
“I think it’s important to support causes like this because drunk driving is very damaging to a lot of people, especially around the holidays,” said Danielle Dillow. “You have to think about not just yourself like oh, I’ll be okay, I’m good to drive. You have to think about everybody else on the road, how much you can impact somebody else’s life.”
It’s this thought process from both students and adults that everyone involved here hopes will resonate throughout the community.
This is making DUI prevention top-of-mind, not just during the holidays, but every day of the year.
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