The Tempe Coalition focuses on reducing underage drinking and youth drug use. They have been selected to receive the 2013 Milestone Award from the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, a national organization working to make communities safe, healthy and drug free. (Photo by Dominic Valente)ASU alumna Cassidy Olson landed a job with the Tempe Coalition, a nonprofit organization trying to reduce underage drinking and drug use, three days after she graduated. Two years later, she assisted the coalition in winning the 2013 Got Outcomes! Coalitions of Excellence Milestones Award by the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America.
Olson works as coalition assistant and was the main craftswoman on the two-phase application process that landed the coalition a national award.
"We were really excited about that," she said. "That our little coalition in Tempe was able to kind of be acknowledged in that way by a national entity, it is really exciting for us."
Olson said the application process took about two or three months.
"It was kind of a grueling process," she said.
The Tempe Coalition formed in 2009 to help reduce underage drinking and youth drug use, according to its website.
Olson said the coalition is made up of more than 25 workers and Tempe residents, representing 12 different sectors.
"We make sure it’s broad, and we’re getting opinions from all different areas in the community to really make it a more unified and really more representative coalition of the whole community," she said.
Sean Donovan, vice president of media and program development at the Tempe Chamber of Commerce, holds the two-year term of coalition chairman. He said the coalition is a good way for the community to get involved.
"I find it as a great way to give back to the community and also to help our youth reach their full potential," he said. The Milestones Award assures the coalition that it is headed in the right direction, Donovan said.
"We know that the efforts and the work that we’re doing is something that is helping the community, and when other people from outside the community see that, it just makes me proud to be a part of this," he said. The Milestones Award is one of three national awards given by CADCA each year, Olson said. This award focuses on newer coalitions less than five years old that center on short- and long-term goals.
"We applied on the work we’ve done around underage drinking," she said.
Specifically, the coalition works with middle and high school children aged 11-18, though its outreach also aims toward adults, Olson said.
"We have to tailor our messaging, so that it not only targets the younger youth and the parents, but also the adults who may play some role in that as well," she said.
The coalition worked with the Public Relations Lab at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication to formulate the "21 or Too Young" campaign to reduce underage drinking, Olson said.
She worked on that campaign as a student in the PR Lab, and by working with the coalition she obtained the job as its assistant.
"When I was going to school, I knew I wanted to work somewhere where I wouldn’t just be taking home a paycheck, but somewhere where I’d feel like I’d be making some sort of a difference," she said. "So I think the nonprofit world always appealed to me."
Kim Bauman, social services supervisor for Tempe and a member of the coalition, said the coalition is important because it teaches children the harms of underage drinking.
"The majority of kids think that other kids think it’s OK to drink, but they really don’t," she said. "When you survey kids, they don’t think it’s a good idea, but they think everybody else thinks it’s OK."
Bauman said while ASU does have an impact on the community, it is not the sole cause of underage drinking in Tempe.
"There are plenty of kids down in South Tempe who don’t make it up to the University who also are going to party," she said.
Olson said the award and the application really brought the coalition together, and the members are now using the process to plan their future goals.
"We’re now taking those pieces that we sent in and applied with to the full coalition meetings and doing strategic planning around them and bringing the full coalition into one unified understanding of how we want to move forward," she said.
Although the coalition is a partnership between the Tempe Community Council and the city of Tempe and is funded by two grants, Olson emphasized the importance of the community in the success of the coalition.
"Without the efforts of our members and our volunteer base and our partnerships with TCC and the city of Tempe, certainly we would not be where we are today and our win would not have been possible," she said.
Reach the reporter at savannah.harrelson@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @savannahleeh
