The 5th grade students of the Penn Kidder Elementary School attended a

D.A.R.E. graduation ceremony in the school's gymnasium along with their teachers, parents, and some school and township officials.Approximately 80 students had attended the

D.A.R.E. program which stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education.Their instructor Kidder Township Police Officer Brian Dalesandro has been the instructor for the program at Penn Kidder Elementary since 2006.After school Principal Mr. Gasper, Assistant Principal Mr. Engle, and JTASD Superintendent Barbara Conway had addressed the students, Officer Dalesandro introduced the Guest Speaker Carbon County District Attorney Gary Dobias.Dobias explained to the students that the Police prosecute crimes while the District Attorney prosecutes the criminals who commit them.He said that his office works with all 11 Police departments in Carbon County and 4 different State Police barracks and they all can attest to the destructive effects that drug and alcohol abuse has on people and how such abuse affects their decision-making and eventually leads them into trouble with the law.The District Attorney then told them that some of the toughest decisions in their lives will be how to deal with drugs and alcohol.That's what the

D.A.R.E. program is about. It helps them learn about what drugs and alcohol could do to their lives and with that knowledge about the dangers of such abuse, they will be better able to resist "peer pressure" to do so as they grow up, and the results of these decision could affect the rest of their lives.Several of the students then read essays that they had written about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse, and then Officer Dalesandro personally handed each one of them a certificate stating that they had successfully completed the D.,A,R,E, program.Officer Dalesandro noted that after the state had dropped funding for the

D.A.R.E. program, Kidder Township picked it up with help from Penn Forest Township and area sponsors such as the Penn Kidder PTA, the Jim Thorpe National Bank, Peak Resorts, Split Rock Resort, and Pocono Gate Alliance.The students capped off their

D.A.R.E. graduation with a drawing for prizes followed by a pizza