SRSLY Stockbridge Awarded 5 Years of Federal Funding

STOCKBRIDGE, Mich. (November 7, 2019) –The White House recently announced 150 new grants for its Drug-Free Communities (DFC) Support Program. SRSLY Stockbridge, in partnership with Stockbridge Community Schools, is one of the grant recipients and will receive $625,000 in DFC funds over the next five years to prevent substance use among youth. DFC grants are awarded for five years with a maximum of 10 years of funding; this is SRSLY Stockbridge’s second round of DFC funding.

“Our goal is to make Stockbridge a safe and drug-free community for our youth,” said SRSLY Stockbridge Director Emily Stewart. “Prevention is a powerful tool to counteract drug use in our community. We will use this funding to continue to empower and equip our youth to make healthy choices.”

The Drug-Free Communities (DFC) Support Program, created by the Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997, is the nation’s leading effort to mobilize communities to prevent youth substance use. Directed by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the DFC Program provides grants to community coalitions to strengthen the infrastructure among local partners to create and sustain a reduction in local youth substance use.

“In order to create safe and healthy places for the next generation, we must break through to our children now and educate them about the dangers of substance use,” ONDCP Director Jim Carroll said. “The Drug-Free Communities, administered by our office across the United States, are proven prevention programs tailored to do just that by meeting the specific needs in each community.”

Recognizing that local problems need local solutions, DFC-funded coalitions like SRSLY engage multiple sectors of the community and employ a variety of environmental strategies to address local substance use problems. Coalitions are comprised of community leaders, parents, youth, teachers, religious and civic organizations, healthcare and business professionals, law enforcement, and media.

DFC-funded community coalitions continue to make progress toward achieving the goal of preventing and reducing youth substance use. In June, ONDCP released the 2018 Executive Summary and End-of-Year Report for its DFC grant recipients, which continue to yield consistently reduced youth substances use rates.

If you’d like to help with SRSLY’s mission, email info@srslystockbridge.org.