Schools

Rockland SADD Students Attend Conference at STAC (VIDEO)

Area high school and middle school students took workshops on how to make smart life choices

Teens don't always make the wisest decisions with pressures from peers, media and their own self-image. On Friday, about 130 students from middle and high schools around the county came together at St. Thomas Aquinas College for the Annual Power of SADD Youth Convention.

Rockland County SADD Advisors Committee has teamed up with several organizations—STAC, Rockland County STOP DWI, SOCASA (South Orangetown Community Awareness of Substance Abuse), MADD Rockland County Community Action Site—to better educate youths. 

“This is the eighth or ninth year,” said Sally Borgman of MADD Rockland Community Action Site. “(The convention) started as a way to help the SADD chapters and get the students together to show them that they’re not alone. Today, it’s to motivate young people and let them bring the knowledge back to their peers at their school. It creates enthusiasm for young people, that knowledge is power.”

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The day began with breakfast and an introduction from Sue Gold, SADD advisor at Clarkstown North High School. After a presentation from Keynote Speaker Steven Benvenisti, attorney at Law, the students split up into several different workshops for the rest of the day.

“I grew up one house from Pearl River in Montvale,” said Benvenisti. “So much of my life was Nanuet and Pearl River.” Although this motivational speaker is local, he’s traveled the entire nation motivating and educating students.

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Workshops were lead by a variety of people with representatives from police departments, the Rockland County Department of Health, RCADD, CANDLE and many more. Some workshop examples include: “Crashes are not Accidents,” “Sexually Transmitted Infections,” “Cyberbullying” and “Peer Pressure/Refusal Skills.”

“Students from all the high schools are here except one high school couldn’t make it,” said Borgman. “There are two middle schools here.”

High schools that attended included:

  • Pearl River
  • Nanuet
  • Clarkstown North
  • Clarkstown South
  • Fieldstone
  • Tappan Zee
  • Ramapo
  • Spring Valley
  • North Rockland
  • Suffern
  • Nyack (Correction, Nyack was also in attendance)
  • South Orangetown Middle School
  • Felix Festa Middle School

For more information, contact your local high school's counselors and advisors.


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