Blog

Kristen Sandler is the outreach coordinator coordinator for the Steps Coalition in Southington Connecticut. Megan Albanese is the youth prevention coordinator for the Town of Southington and Steps Coalition.

“The principal here at DePaulo Middle School found Vive18 and brought him to us. We asked around with our prevention friends and it sounds like he made such a splash at CADCA that we couldn’t wait to get him here. And so that’s how we originally found out.

We had a great kickoff to the day with our youth council students having a leadership academy with Jake and it was great to have that one-on-one experience with him and to learn some of the skills offered in the Vive18 curriculum and to have the kids get a chance to practice facilitating and leading a group because that’s a lot of what they do. And then we moved into the presentation piece so we were excited to have him present to our ninth grade class up at our high school and then travel down the road to the middle school and do a presentation for our seventh grade and eighth graders. I love that the kids are saying it’s way better than we thought it was going to be. That’s our favorite part.

I’ve never seen kids bum rush a presenter to get his autograph on a shoe before, but that happened here today. So such a hit and it’s just fun and upbeat.

It’s real and relatable. As the prevention field has moved away from the “just say no, don’t do drugs” message, so has this presentation and it’s focused on building the skills needed to exist in this world and to avoid those peer pressures. Without a doubt, would love to bring Vive18 back anytime. We would have Jake here every day if we could. And I think our kids were itching to get him back already. So anytime. 100%.”