WILL Press Room
Hoopeston Youth Project Wins National Award
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Prairie Center Health Systems Inc. and WILL AM-FM-TV have been awarded the Exceptional Rural Program Award by the National Rural Alcohol & Drug Abuse Network Inc. for a project that helped develop an action plan to address the needs of teenagers in Hoopeston.
Prairie Center Health Systems Inc. and WILL AM-FM-TV have been awarded the Exceptional Rural Program Award by the National Rural Alcohol & Drug Abuse Network Inc. for a project that helped develop an action plan to address the needs of teenagers in Hoopeston.
The award, part of the Harold E. Hughes Awards of Excellence competition, is given annually to a rural program that exemplifies outstanding contribution to the rural alcohol and drug abuse field.
As a result of the two-year project in Hoopeston, an in-school Big Brothers-Big Sisters mentoring program was established and is ongoing, matching teens with elementary students in need; a Mayor’s Youth Council, meeting weekly, has been formed by the mayor, giving the youth a direct voice in their community; and a new teen center opened to provide an alcohol-free place for older teens to come to listen to music and dance on a Friday or Saturday night.
WILL and Prairie Center began discussions with both young people and community leaders in Hoopeston, in conjunction with WILL-TV’s airing of the PBS documentary series Country Boys about two teenage boys trying to overcome the poverty and family dysfunction of their childhood in rural America.
In Hoopeston, both teens and adults raised the issue of substance abuse as a particular concern. WILL-AM 580 News examined the challenges faced by teens in Hoopeston with a series of reports by news director Tom Rogers.
The spring 2006 work of Prairie Center and WILL was the springboard for the energized students and adults to come together in the fall of 2006 for a teen-led community-wide town hall meeting organized by the teens and attended by more than 65 community residents. The students challenged the adult audience to help them find more local recreational outlets, more part-time employment, more mentoring and additional outlets for youth to have a say in their community.
Betty Seidel, Prairie Center director of development, said the project was focused on hope. “I think we helped the young people and the community leaders realize that there was hope that they could create more positive opportunities for their youth, for their future leaders,” Seidel said.