The first project that was selected this year involves the creation of a 10-15 minute long video detailing the severity of youth drug abuse within Oswego County.

Team members Karly Aserian, Abigail Burrows, Christopher Fisk and Taylor Kesterke said, “We want to educate youth on the health issues drugs can cause, and we want them to not only not want to do drugs, but to also want to educate other people on the harmful effects of them as well.”

The second project selected was by team members Kennedy Barnes, Brianna Collins, Sam Gregory, Jennifer Shampine and Dakota Stoutenger, who plan to coordinate a resource fair with the goal of raising awareness to students on the services offered in our local communities for drug abuse.

The students of this group said their goal was to, “put an objective-based outreach resource fair within each high school to increase the awareness of student support services for drug abuse, and to create continual education opportunities for the community.”

One idea was selected from each of the morning and afternoon classes for implementation. This year’s selecting panelists were Jiancheng Huang, MD, Oswego County Public Health Director, Eric Bresee, Executive Director at Farnham Family Services, Deborah Daby, Development Coordinator for OCO Crisis & Development Services and Sue Callaway, RN, CDE, Diabetes Educator for Oswego Health.

The extensive project involved research, data collection and statistics. The students not only submitted a written proposal outlining their plans in detail, but also a verbal presentation with a slideshow. Proposals needed to include an objective, a procedural plan, a realistic timetable and a budget.

The selected projects will be implemented by the New Vision students in Oswego County School Districts by the end of this school year.