Parents promote peer drug awareness after loss of their son

Floyd and Karen Wiebe are well aware of the tragic consequences of young people becoming entangled in a life of drugs.

The couple’s son, TJ Wiebe, was influenced by drugs and mixed up with the wrong crowd when he was murdered in 2003.

In reaction to TJ’s death, the Wiebes set up a fund in his name to promote drug awareness. They are now aligning themselves with students from across the city.

“What we have done is set up a peer education program because obviously peers are the ones that get them into it and it is also our strong belief that peers will keep them from getting them started,” Floyd Wiebe said.

The Wiebes’ program involves high school students who are willing to take a an oath to remain drug-free and to promote drug awareness in their schools.

Funding for the program comes coming from the TJ’s Gift Foundation, which is holding its gala evening on May 13 at Canad Inn Polo Park.

“Not many programs talk about drug awareness except in health class and we didn’t feel that was the most effective way in getting the message across,” Floyd Wiebe said of the need for a peer education program.

Kristina Scharman is a Grade 10 student from Collège Jeanne-Sauvé who says it is important that students delivering an anti-drug message to peers because that’s where the pressure is coming from.

“I think hearing from your peers takes a different toll on you. Hearing it from your friends makes it a lot easier to understand and really opens me up to learning rather than tuning out those adults,” Scharman says.

Scharman also noted that it is important to educate students when they begin high school.

“When I entered high school there was a lot of pressure on me to do (drugs), it is not so much your friends who are doing it, but you are at a new school and you want to fit in. Everyone wants to fit in whether they admit it or not.”

Devonny Hadder, a Grade 11 student at Nelson McIntyre Collegiate, applied to the TJ’s Gift Foundation because she felt students needed to hear the options they have available to them.

“(Students) need to know there are people out there who don’t fit that teenage stereotype that everyone does drugs and that is the cool thing to do,” Hadder said.

“There are a bunch of people out there that aren’t like that and if you think you will be ridiculed or made fun of because you are not like that, then you need to know there are people out there like you and that understand you.”

Hadder says she hopes to bring speakers in to her school to talk about their real-life experiences.

At this year’s TJ’s Gift Gala,students will present videos which Floyd says, “are empowering and reinforced my commitment to the project.”

Corporate tables and individual tickets for the TJ’s Gift Gala can be purchased at 253-9768.