Jones Co. Coalition receives $50,000 grant

     The Jones County Safe and Healthy Youth Coalition, with ASAC as the grantee, was one of 55 recipients across the nation (the only one in the State of Iowa) to receive the 2018 CARA (Comprehensive Additional and Recovery Act) Local Drug Crisis grant. The Coalition was awarded $50,000.

     The purpose of the grant program is to provide communities throughout the United States resources to prevent and reduce the abuse of opioids, methamphetamines, and prescription medications among youth ages 12-18. The grant helps to implement comprehensive communitywide strategies that address local drug crises and emerging drug abuse issues.

     In a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Office in Washington, D.C. announcing the Coalition’s award, it stated: The grant “is designed to support communities as they mobilize individuals and organizations to prevent youth substance use.”

     The grant went into effect on June 15 and runs through June 14, 2021. The Coalition will receive $50,000 each year for the three-year grant period.

     “We have been talking about change in the meth issue the past year or more, so it is so good to be able to have some funding to work specifically on this,” expressed Coalition Project Coordinator Jennifer Husmann.

     In order to apply, your state had to have youth meth or opioid use rates higher than the national average for a sustained period of time.

     “Unfortunately we have had that scenario since 2012,” reported Husmann.

     Meth use rate for 11^th graders in Jones County for 2016 was 2 percent. The national average for 10^th and 12^th graders was 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent respectively.

     “So we were almost seven to 10 times higher, but thankfully this is still relatively low when compared to some of the other drugs that we have been focusing on–alcohol, marijuana, prescription drugs, and tobacco/nicotine,” said Husmann.

     This grant comes at a good time, as the Coalition’s Drug Free Community Grant expires at the end of September of this year, after 10 years at $125,000 a year. Husmann said the Coalition plans to apply for a no-cost extension on this particular grant to last a few extra months.

     In 2016, Sen. Grassley led the CARA, a sweeping addiction recovery bill aimed at addressing the nation’s growing heroin and opioid addiction epidemic. The bill, which later became law, included a number of Grassley’s provisions to assist in the fight against drug misuse.

     “I hear stories from Iowans across the state about the devastating impact that illegal drugs have taken on their hometowns,” Grassley said in 2016. “In many parts of the nation, it’s being driven by abuse of prescription opioids and cheap, but deadly heroin. And in Iowa, meth continues to destroy families. This bipartisan bill takes a multipronged approach to face drug addiction head-on through increased prevention, education, treatment, recovery and law enforcement efforts.”

     For more information on the Coalition’s efforts, visit www.jonescountycoalition.org.