Hopefully you read in this very newspaper a few weeks ago that I’ve been appointed as the new director for the Fountain Hills Youth Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition. That’s a mouthful, so we usually just call it the Fountain Hills Coalition or the Drug Coalition.

The coalition has been around since 2009, and I believe we have made great strides in reducing the use of tobacco/nicotine, alcohol and marijuana among our young people. I’ve been on the board of directors through those years, but since our former director, Shelly Mowrey, decided to take on other tasks in the prevention world, the board decided to place me in that role. Thankfully, Shelly is now on our board and is a phone call or text away when I need assistance.

We will continue emphasizing our prevention efforts in those above-named areas, since vaping is still a worrisome trend, but we have expanded to other areas as well, such as warning people about counterfeit pills and the rise of fentanyl being laced in those fake pills.

I’m hoping the editor of this fine publication is willing on a periodic basis to allow me to update you on what the coalition is up to and what trends parents and other community members should be aware of.

For now, I’d like to briefly discuss an upcoming event slated for 8 a.m. Saturday morning, Oct. 30, at the Fountain Hills Community Center. Called Fountain Hills Cares, the forum is being organized by Town staff as well as Town Council members.

FH Cares will focus on several social issues that have directly impacted our town in the last couple of years, including race relations, homelessness, mental health/suicide awareness as well as the rise of fentanyl in the drug world. We have worked hard to get expert speakers who will address these topics and discuss their impact on our town and how we are tackling them.

Our community still has a small-town atmosphere that attracts newcomers here, but the reality is that major issues such as drug abuse and homelessness, for example, do exist in Fountain Hills and will likely never totally disappear from our midst. However, open dialogue about these issues and common-sense approaches are always good places to start. Information and education are powerful tools that will help build a consensus on what we can do together as friends, neighbors and families.

Please consider blocking out the morning of Oct. 30 to attend Fountain Hills Cares and see what we can do as a community to make our little world of Fountain Hills a better place to live, work and play.