St. Gregory’s hosts 23rd D.A.R.E. auction
STEVE HARTMAN/DAILY FORUM
Maryville Public Safety Sgt. Rick Smail stands beside some of the items available to the highest bidder at the 23rd D.A.R.E. auction, held at 6 p.m. Saturday in the St. Gregory’s school gymnasium. Proceeds from the dinner and auction will fund the D.A.R.E. program, which serves K-8 classes at Maryville R-II, Horace Mann and St. Gregory’s.
The 23rd annual D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) dinner and auction was held Saturday night at the St. Gregory’s school gymnasium. Proceeds from the dinner and items auctioned off both by silent and live auctions are the only sources of revenue for the Maryville D.A.R.E. program. Nearly 1,000 children grades K-8 from Maryville R-II, Horace Mann and St. Gregory’s school participate in the program each year, according to Maryville Public Safety Sgt. Rick Smail, who has been involved with the program since it’s inception 25 years ago.
“This year’s eighth graders will be the 25th graduating class of the Maryville D.A.R.E. program,” Smail said. “I have been involved with every class along the way, and I really enjoy it.”
Smail said it takes approximately $10,000 annually to fund the program in Maryville, and the last few years, proceeds from the dinner and auction have exceeded that amount.
“We just finished up the 23rd annual D.A.R.E. basketball tournament,” Smail said. “That will likely be the last one, as this event takes care of our expenses.”
One of the big events built in to the D.A.R.E. program is the sixth and eighth grade movie nights.
“We have separate nights where both sixth and eighth graders have an all-they-can-eat pizza night, followed by having the entire theatre to themselves to watch a first-run movie that no one has seen yet,” Smail said. “That’s a very popular event.”
Smail said the D.A.R.E. program also sponsors bowling nights for fifth and sixth graders enrolled in the program, which is very popular.
“It’s difficult to quantify into words just how important the D.A.R.E. program is,” Maryville R-II High School Principal Thom Alvarez said. “We have our D.A.R.E. role models in the high school who have graduated from the program and go back down and talk to the younger students about the importance of D.A.R.E. It’s a wonderful program.”
D.A.R.E. is a nationally recognized cooperative drug education program started in 1983. It is a program taught by police officers to educate students in skills to deal with peer pressure and to resist drugs and violence. The Maryville Public Safety Department began teaching the D.A.R.E. curriculum at the Maryville R-II school system, the Horace Mann Learning Center and St. Gregory’s Barbarigo School in 1990.
STEVE HARTMAN/DAILY FORUM
Attendees to the 23rd annual D.A.R.E. auction check out items that are up for auction before dinner is served. Proceeds from the auction and dinner are the sole source of revenue for the Maryville D.A.R.E. program. Students K-8 at Maryville R-II, Horace Mann and St. Gregory’s take part in the program.
STEVE HARTMAN/DAILY FORUM
One of the auction items available at the D.A.R.E. auction was a Mozingo Lake Recreation Park golf flag autographed by Kansas City golfing legend Tom Watson, who has been instrumental in the development and building of a junior golf course at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park.
STEVE HARTMAN/DAILY FORUM
An item available at the 23rd D.A.R.E. auction was an autographed Alex Gordon jersey. Gordon is the Gold-Glove winning All-Star leftfielder for the 2014 American League champion Kansas City Royals.
