Last month, more than 300 students gathered at Wheaton High School for the third annual Save a Student Summit. Hosted by the Montgomery County Regional Student Government Association and the Maryland Students Against Drugs, the Feb. 21 event included student-created and student-led workshops that taught opioid prevention skills, shared resources, trained participants on how to administer Narcan and led advocacy discussions.
The program opened with Anuva Maloo, Student Member of the Board of Education, and two guest speakers: Anny Padilla, a Peer Recovery Specialist from Tree of Hope, and an MCPS high school student who shared their stories of recovery and their work to help others in recovery. Parents heard a bilingual presentation from Identity and a talk by parents Jennifer Pisarra and Deena Loudon, who shared stories of losing their children.
This program was supported by the Maryland State’s Attorney’s Office of Montgomery County, Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services, Montgomery Goes Purple, Tree of Hope Association, Identity and MCCPTA who also hosted resource tables.
Student participants earned service learning hours and received a Narcan kit, distributed by BTheOne Youth Ambassadors from the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services.
Winners of the Speak Up, Save a Life contest were also announced from more than 350 entries. They are:
First Place: $5,000 prize
- Katarina Kresslin, Poolesville High School, “Your Body Knows”
Second Place and Fan Favorite: $4,000 prize, ($3,000 for 2nd place; $1,000 for fan favorite, as selected by students)
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- Allison Shaw and Ashalina Haque, Seneca Valley High School, “67 Saves Lives”
Third Place: $1,000 prize
- Max Kander and Mason Smolar, Newport Mill Middle School, “Holes Cannot Be Filled”
Honorable Mentions earned $500 prizes
- Jayden Rock, Odessa Shannon Middle School
- Erin Walker, Parkland Middle School
- Federica Albanese, John F. Kennedy High School
- Omar Sharaf, Col. Zadok Magruder High School
- Louis “Tiernan” Weber, Adrian Ohern, Carmel Broder, Winston Churchill High School
- Erik Zetterli, Thomas Pyle Middle School
- Adrian Gonzalez, Alex Orellana, DJ Ormsby, Shady Grove Middle School
- Sophie Pires, Westland Middle School
- Aryav Bathla, Kingsview Middle School
Read the original article at mcps