By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
A program designed to teach middle and high schoolers the benefits of partying sober is coming to St. Joseph.
Vive18, a presentation designed by Jake White and Thomas Barraza, is encouraging students to party sober, and host drug free events.
The presentation called Vive18 is being brought to the city thanks to a partnership between the St. Joseph Youth Alliance and the school district.
Julie Wiedmer with the Youth Alliance says through the school district she has heard of problems with vaping, which inspired bringing the program here.
"So, we're just trying to partner with them and give some good resources and some good information, because a lot of times students are not hearing the correct information, they're just hearing what they're hearing from friends or whatever," Wiedmer tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Wiedmer with Youth Alliance says the hope is that students will learn good information about the dangers of substance abuse, and also find peers like them
"You know, like I don't want to do that but there's a lot of other people that don't want to also," Wiedmer explains. "So those are going to be the people that I can get together with and have a good time and not have that stress or peer pressure of substance use."
Wiedmer says middle school is a time when a student will make choices that could affect the rest of their life, and the program hopes to give them a good positive choice
"Hopefully that it will give them an option to hold off using substances if not entirely abstain from it because it can affect them and have negative effects for the rest of their lives," Wiedmer says.
The group talked to students at Bode and Roubidoux middle schools on Thursday. They'll be at Spring Garden and Truman middle schools on Friday.
You can learn more about the Vive18 presentation by visiting their website Vive18.com