Youth celebrate red ribbon week

Photo By Sgt. Michael Iams | Staff Sgt. Alexander J. Bush, a sousaphonist with the III Marine Expeditionary Force Band, plays music for a crowd of children from Zukeran Elementary School on Camp Foster Oct. 28 during the school’s Red Ribbon Walk. The band played as the students participated in the walk, which led them around a football field to the theme of “stomp out drugs.”  

CAMP FOSTER, OKINAWA, JAPAN

11.03.2011

Story by Lance Cpl. Courtney White 

III Marine Expeditionary Force   

CAMP FOSTER, Japan - Zukeran Elementary School students celebrated Red Ribbon Week Oct. 24-28 as part of an awareness campaign for substance-abuse prevention.

Red Ribbon week is a national observance in memory of Enrique Camarena, an agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency and a Marine veteran, who gave his life fighting the battle against illegal drugs.

The week had daily themes to strengthen the students’ anti-drug attitudes, said Jeanne Tsue-Grimes, a counselor at Zukeran Elementary School. They included wearing head bands and bandannas in a “band against drugs” and wearing clothes backwards to “turn your backs on drugs.”

Though Red Ribbon week is only one week out of the year, Zukeran Elementary School strives to spread the spirit of an anti-drug lifestyle year around, Tsue-Grimes said.

“The school gets counselors in the classrooms all year long to do presentations on how to cope with problems and certain situations students might encounter,” said Glenda Hernandez, a teacher at the school. “We want to keep in their minds that drugs are not the way to solve their problems.”

The school’s Red Ribbon Week closing ceremony Oct. 28 included remarks from Cindy M. Templeton, the principal of the school, and a parade during which the students wore red for the “Red Ribbon Walk.”

The III Marine Expeditionary Force Band played as the students participated in the walk, which led them around the football field to the theme “stomp out drugs.” The walk looped around the school’s running track with individual classes joining the walk at staggered times throughout the event

“Zukeran Elementary School believes that knowledge, awareness, and early intervention are critical for all students,” said Tsue-Grimes. “It is our commitment that our students are in a safe and healthy environment, free to learn and flourish in school and the community.”

Department of Defense Dependent Schools students at other schools on military installations on Okinawa also held a variety of events to support Red Ribbon Week.

• Date Taken: 11.03.2011
• Date Posted: 11.02.2011 23:22
• Story ID: 79474
• Location: CAMP FOSTER, OKINAWA, JP