A group of eight student athletes on Drug Free Council are stepping up to help prevent drug use in the community.
“The point of DFC is to show that you can still have a good time in high school without using drugs,” senior Brian Hillhouse said. “The members of DFC are athletes who choose to remain drug and alcohol free throughout their high school career.
A male and female from each grade are selected to represent their class.
The representatives are seniors Brian Hillhouse and Alyssa Waitz, juniors Katie Rembold and Brady Feigl, and sophomores Zack Jin and Carly Beck. The representatives of the freshman class have yet to be determined.
“On DFC we discuss a lot of the problems that are occurring around the district. They can be drug related problems or sportsmanship problems,” Hillhouse said.
DFC plans events throughout the district and sell t-shirts to make profit to give to charity. The purpose of DFC is to help benefit all of Parkway. The group also took a trip to Washington D.C.
“Our trip to D.C. was kind of more of a reward for being drug and alcohol free and showing that there is benefit in making smart decisions in the community,” Rembold said.
On the trip the representatives talked to secret service agents about the effects of drugs and cases that they were involved in.
“We do lots of activities as a group such as going to sporting events, but we also try to plan things for our schools and invite other districts so that we can have drug and alcohol free nights,” Waitz said.
Members of DFC encourage peers to be able to have fun at parties and on the weekends without using drugs or alcohol.
“It’s very difficult to completely stop teenagers from using drugs because unfortunately drugs will always be around,” Hillhouse said.