Theresa DelVecchio is a prevention educator who works for Putnam County, but she spends much of her time in the Putnam Valley schools working directly with students to share with them the reasons why the use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco are poor choices for everyone, but especially pre-teens and teenagers.

For parents and professionals, high school prom season, now in full swing, is one of the scariest times of the year. Kids and their parents spend a lot of money on clothes, hair, shoes, flowers, limos, and other prom paraphernalia in order to create a lifelong memory of high school. Every year, however, that lifelong memory can become a nightmare for some kids and their families. Sometimes with—mostly without—
their parents’ permission, prom-goers obtain alcohol or drugs, believing that being intoxicated will enhance the “fun” of the experience. In 300 cases every year, that bad prom night decision turns out to be the last decision that young person ever makes.

Ms. DelVecchio shared one of her approaches to this year’s effort at creating prom safety awareness. “For pre-prom awareness I am displaying 300 pinwheels in front of the school. I did not tell the students what they represent but we aired the story on the morning announcements and I had a contest going for students to guess what the 300 pinwheels represent. On Friday, May 15, (which was also Junior Prom night at PVHS) I revealed that the 300 pinwheels represent the 300 alcohol-related deaths that occur every year on prom nights across the US (statistics from the NHTSA).”

Previous year’s prom safety tools have included parking a badly damaged car on the grass in front of the high school to reinforce what a car accident can do, and sending home letters to parents reminding them that serving alcohol to minors is never a smart, safe, or legal choice.