Pubdate: Tue, 30 Mar 2004
Source: Exeter News-Letter (NH)
Copyright: 2004 Exeter News-Letter
Contact:  http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/exeter
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3209
Author: Rachel Grace Toussaint

STUDENTS HELP TO RAISE FUNDS FOR D.A.R.E.

EXETER - A fund-raiser co-sponsored by Exeter police and Exeter Pizza Hut 
dares families to spend quality time together all while "Helping Friends" 
and encouraging kids to make healthy choices.

And students from Lincoln Street School will be playing an integral part in 
the initiative.

This spring, LSS students will be selling Pizza Hut "Helping Friends" value 
cards to family and friends throughout the remainder of the school year. 
The cards provide patrons with the value of six coupons for a free, medium, 
one-topping pizza with the purchase of a large pizza and six coupons for $5 
off any purchase of $15. For every $8 card sold, $5 of the proceeds will 
benefit Exeter's Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program.

The D.A.R.E. program, which has roots all over the globe but is funded by 
individual communities, has been in the Exeter schools for several years, 
arming kids with information and skills they need to live drug- and 
violence-free lives. And for nearly just as long, Exeter Pizza Hut, located 
at 100 Portsmouth Ave., has been supporting the program in various ways, 
according to manager Judy Hughes.

"It's something important to me personally as well as to Pizza Hut as a 
corporation," said Hughes. "Anything to keep kids off drugs and making 
healthy choices." That's just what D.A.R.E. aims to do.

Through its program, D.A.R.E. provides both an after-school recreational 
program and in-class educational program for kids. Proceeds from this 
fund-raiser will go toward supplies primarily for the after-school program, 
which allows kids some fun time with officers going on bowling, swimming 
and ice skating outings, among other activities.

"If the fund raising went away, the program itself would still exist, but 
it 's the after-school program that would die," said Detective and Juvenile 
Officer Frank Winterer.

This, he said, would be a grave disservice to the community.

"It builds relationships between officers and kids," Winterer said of the 
after-school program, "and it gets kids to see us in a more human light.

The in-school program provides a different, but equally important service 
to fifth-graders with its 17-lesson curriculum. The program, which Winterer 
calls a "life skills" course, spans topics including ways to say no to 
different kinds of peer pressure, conflict resolution, self-esteem, 
influences of the media, how drugs and alcohol affect the mind and body, 
and good decision-making.

Cooperative Middle School student Erin Benotti, who was in the program last 
year, said D.A.R.E. helped her solidify her philosophy about drug and 
alcohol choices.

"Before I began this program, I knew I would say no to drugs and alcohol, 
but I wasn't exactly sure how to without getting myself into trouble or if 
I would even have the courage to say no, especially if the people peer 
pressuring me were my friends," said Erin, a sixth-grader. "I feel that 
this program has good potential and kids who go through the D.A.R.E. 
program are a lot less likely to give in to peer pressure than kids who 
have never been through it."

But the endeavor is about more than just fund raising for D.A.R.E., says 
Louise Benotti, a member of the program's Board of directors and Erin's 
stepmom. By supporting this fund-raiser, she said, families are encouraged 
to spend dinnertime together.

"Dinner has always been a time to regroup and reunite with your kids and 
today it's hard to do that," she said. "As a parent, this valuable time can 
serve as a vehicle to interact with your children by sharing stories, 
working out problems, and ultimately even transitioning from the outside 
world back to the shelter of one's home life."

For information, call Louise Benotti at 775-7977.