Schools

'Wake Up to Awareness' Continues to Stress Drug Prevention

Since January, seven students in the East Meadow community between ages 20-22 have died by overdose.

When Renato Manaloto came up with the idea for on April 9, never in his wildest dreams did he believe it would take off so fast.

Now, two months later, the graduate and his team is on the verge of becoming a legitimate non-for-profit organization whose goal is to raise drug awareness.

“What surprised me the most is, as soon as people were given an avenue to voice their ideas and how to spread awareness, they started coming out there," Manaloto said. "It seems as if, people have all these ideas, but they felt their little idea couldn’t do much."

Find out what's happening in East Meadowwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Manaloto, along with co-founders Giovanni Fuentes and Amanda Louisa, decided to sell bracelets to raise some money on May 20 at . The group raised $1,000 just from bracelet purchases and donations in that one day alone.

Wake Up to Awareness also had a table at , and they were giving out bracelets and sunglasses, while handing out informational pamphlets as well.

Find out what's happening in East Meadowwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Legis. Norma Gonsalves, R-East Meadow, said there have been of people between the ages of 20-22 in the East Meadow School District community since January.

Manaloto said that East Meadow High School Principal Richard Howard told the group they would be welcome to present once they become official, and Gonsalves approached them about being a part of her “Not My Child” series as well. Manaloto added that the group is looking to have its first big event this summer.

“We want to do it at ,” he said. “We want to actually lock down that Lakeside Theatre for that big show, which would be huge.”

A lot of donations have been offered to the group, but they cannot accept large contributions until they are officials. Manaloto said some of the donations, which are waiting, were as high as $1,000.  Although the group garnered over 1,000 Facebook followers in a short period of time, Manaloto said there’s still ways to expand the group’s reach.

“Even though there’s over a thousand people that know about us, there are still some people that haven’t heard,” he said.  “We’re not Wake Up, East Meadow officially. We’re Wake Up to Awareness, which gives us an opportunity to spread out to all those other communities.”

For more information on Wake Up to Awareness, click here. What do you think of the work these locals are doing? Tell us in the comments.


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