They “freaked out” and they cried —and they did not quite believe it.
But when Jaime Epstein and Dr. Cristina Cortesi got the letter in the mail the next day, they knew it was real.
The non-profit organization they helped create 18 months ago will be funded, for the next five years, by the federal government.
“We were like ‘Oh my God!'” Epstein recalled. “We couldn’t stop smiling, all week. It’s a game-changer.”
Epstein is the coalition coordinator of the Stand Strong Coalition, a group she created in the spring of 2014 with fellow Stevenson High School moms Debbie Stern and Susan Sirota.
Its objective, Epstein says, is to convince kids to stay away from drugs and alcohol, and to convince permissive parents to not give them any. The group has put together some lectures and events that have drawn local authorities, fueled by a total budget that Epstein put in the “couple thousand dollars” range, all donated by local businesses.
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On Sept. 29, Epstein said that Stand Strong will receive its first of five annual grants from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a cash infusion of $125,000 per year that should propel it to new heights of influence.
Epstein said the money will go primarily into creating and printing a handbook for parents about the dangers of hosting keg parties and permitting marijuana use, lock-boxes that will keep teens out of prescription drug containers, and public service announcements to be played in local movie theaters.
“It’s happening really quickly,” Epstein said of the grant reception, which they learned of last week. “We tried it our first time, and we got it!”
Stand Strong is a collective of education, religious, law enforcement and parent-group leaders, intended to block the abuse of alcohol and drugs among the teens within the boundaries of the Stevenson district.
Its membership includes Lincolnshire Police Chief Peter Kinsey, Nicasa CEO Bruce Johnson and Cortesi, Stevenson’s substance abuse prevention coordinator.
Made up entirely of volunteers, the group put together the “Not My Kid!?” symposium last September at Stevenson, at which panelists discussed the myriad dangers of drug and alcohol abuse among teens.
With influence from Kinsey, the Lincolnshire Village Board recently adopted the “model social host ordinance,” written by Lake County and enforced in Buffalo Grove and other communities. Epstein said she, Sirota and Stern patterned the group after several existing, and successful, organizations: Link Together in Wheeling, Speak Up in Lake Forest and Stand Up in Mundelein.
Epstein, who began organizing the group in the fall of 2013 after her daughter, Hannah, began her freshman year, said she learned about the federal government’s Drug-Free Communities Support Program this January — and flew to Washington, D.C., to take part in a multi-day, grant-application program later that month.
She said she earned an MBA while attending the University of California at Los Angeles, with a specialty in non-profit business, so she understood in advance that all the help she had received from the three neighboring task forces would put her into a race with them for a limited number of grants.
“Even though it’s competitive, in terms of the grant process, they’ve been on their feet longer, and they were really helpful,” she said.
Stand Strong submitted its application in March. Epstein said she first learned of their selection last week, when Johnson called and told her that he had been looking through an online list of grantees, and seen their group in the list. She said she had a hard time believing it until the next day, though, when a letter from the Office of National Drug Control Policy arrived.
That meant that all those plans had to start jumping into place, Epstein said. Among them: employees.
Epstein will become the closest thing the group will have to a full-time worker — she said she will work 25 hours per week, at $25 per hour, overseeing its day-to-day affairs.
Stand Strong will also hire a part-time marketing and social media director, Epstein said.
With the days of calling up grocery stores and asking for food donations for events behind them, Epstein said Stand Strong will focus on three points: abuse of prescription drugs, educating teens about the effects of marijuana, and convincing parents to not host keg parties.
The picture of success, she said, is when more Stevenson-area parents take the dangers of drugs and alcohol seriously.
“I don’t want to be the only mom standing out here, saying ‘No,'” Epstein said.
Stand Strong’s hope, she said, is to bring to light the dangers that can rise in a school district that is, in many ways, opulent.
“It’s hard to find needs there,” Epstein said. “There’s not a great need for whiteboards there, but there’s a lot of stress and anxiety.”
The grant will end in 2020. After that, Epstein noted that she will be back to competing with the neighbors, and non-profits around the country, for more funding. But, in five years, they will not be campaigning on plans, they will be demonstrating what they did.
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