{"id":17649,"date":"2016-10-27T10:56:33","date_gmt":"2016-10-27T14:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=17649"},"modified":"2016-10-27T10:56:33","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T14:56:33","slug":"coatesvilles-make-a-difference-day-and-drug-take-back-event-a-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=17649","title":{"rendered":"Coatesville’s Make a Difference Day and Drug Take-Back event a success"},"content":{"rendered":"

Volunteers donated time, as police collected unused medications<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n

By Lauren Parker- Gill,<\/strong>\u00a0News Editor, The Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\"After<\/a>

After gathering outside of the Benner Building Saturday morning, over 100 volunteers donated their time in six locations throughout Coatesville.<\/p><\/div>\n

COATESVILLE \u2013 Great things were happening in Coatesville this past weekend for Make a Difference Day that was organized by the Coatesville Youth Initiative\u00a0and the National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day that was also held Saturday at the City of Coatesville Police Department and Caln Township Police Department.<\/p>\n

According to its website, Make a Difference Day, now in its 24th year, is one of the largest days of service held in the nation and was formed in 1992 with the purpose of showing that people can work together to have an impact on their community.<\/p>\n

Despite the cold and the light rain that began to fall right at 9 a.m., over 100 volunteers turned out to volunteer their time and their services at locations, such as West End Park, Ash Park, Palmer Park, the Benner Building, Scott Middle School and the Brandywine Center Building. Tasks varied between picking up trash and raking leaves in the parks to repainting inspiring words and games on asphalt paths and painting over graffiti.<\/p>\n

\"Svereal<\/a>

Svereal volunteers helped collect trash, rake leaves and repaint inspiring words and games for the Born Learning Trail at Ash Park.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe outpouring of help from our youth and from Coatesville families was amazing,\u201d said Lula Defersha, Prevention Manager for the Coatesville Youth Initiative.\u00a0\u201cWe accomplished far more that we had planned on and look forward to making next year\u2019s event even bigger and better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also taking place Saturday was the Drug Enforcement Administration\u2019s 12th<\/sup> National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. Local police departments teamed up with the community to collect unused or expired prescription and non-prescription medications to safely dispose.<\/p>\n

While there are five collection bins throughout Coatesville, Caln Township police station and Coatesville police station had a designated collection time between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a nice opportunity to make certain that drugs are properly disposed of and staying out of the hands of people that could abuse them,\u201d stated Officer Kirt Guyer, with the Coatesville Police Department.<\/p>\n

\"Officer<\/a>

Officer Kirt Guyer was on hand Saturday morning for the drug take-back program, run by the DEA.<\/p><\/div>\n

Valley Township resident Donna Clark was thankful for the opportunity to clean out her medicine cabinet as a way to prevent medications from getting into the wrong hands.<\/p>\n

Clark\u2019s son first got addicted to drugs by raiding a friend\u2019s medicine cabinet as a teen; at 33 years old, he is now working on his recovery and a new life.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to clean out your medicine cabinet prevents medications from getting into the wrong hands, which can help people avoid addiction, overdoses and potentially dangerous drug interactions.\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n

As Clark placed her medications in the bin at the Coatesville police station, Sergeant Rodger Ollis estimated that nearly 700 pounds of medications had been turned in, between the collection bins in the area and what was turned in that day.<\/p>\n

Clark then said that if telling the story about her son ends up saving a life or preventing another person from becoming an addict, it\u2019s worth it.<\/p>\n

\"Donna<\/a>

Donna Clark cleaned out her medicine cabinet for the take-back program, which is a cause that is very important to her.<\/p><\/div>\n

Though the DEA holds two take-back collection dates per year, there are five collection bins that are available throughout the year and are emptied quarterly. They are at the following locations:<\/p>\n

Caln Township Police Department<\/p>\n

City of Coatesville Police Department<\/p>\n

Valley Township Police Department<\/p>\n

West Brandywine Police Department<\/p>\n

West Caln Police Department<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Volunteers donated time, as police collected unused medications By Lauren Parker- Gill,\u00a0News Editor, The Times COATESVILLE \u2013 Great things were happening in Coatesville this past weekend for Make a Difference Day that was organized by the Coatesville Youth Initiative\u00a0and the National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day that was also held Saturday at the City of Coatesville […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":17652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2030,196,6269,744,6607],"class_list":["post-17649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-city-of-coatesville-police-department","tag-coatesville-youth-initiative","tag-featured","tag-national-drug-take-back-initiative","tag-national-make-a-difference-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17649"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17656,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17649\/revisions\/17656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}