Jim Thorpe Association

PROJECT PURPOSE

We operate the State's largest drug, alcohol, tobacco. and vape free initiative for youth, working with over 2000 schools across Oklahoma, and receive no funding from the state for any of our youth programs. We rely on public and private donations annually to support these programs. The pandemic has virtually ceased these funds from coming in, which has crippled our budget funding and kept us from maximizing our education efforts with these schools. We, literally, reach tens of thousands of school age children through our Bright Path Youth Programs annually.

EVIDENCE

We assemble an evidence based booklet at the end of each year detailing the success of our programs. We work with the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, Peaceful Family Solutions, and Parents Helping Parents providing web base resources for students, families and faculty. We bring students, parents and faculty members from schools across Oklahoma into OKC each spring to recognize levels of achievements in our programs.

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

As mentioned earlier, we work with over 2000 schools across Oklahoma. We have personally received feedback from our school partners in Mooreland, Elgin, Apache, Lawton, Tulsa, and several other school districts that have suffered from our programs not being available to them during the pandemic. Our programs are the only programs of their kind that some of these schools have access to. With our funding being crippled these past two years these schools saw a rise in drug, alcohol, tobacco and, most of all, vaping use in students.

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

We gather information, annually, from the schools we work with depicting the number of children that were reached with our message and educational resources. We also make contact, firsthand, with students through our Children's Challenge programs to help raise awareness for their physical education, health & wellness. We also measure project performance through our arts & essay programs and scholar athlete awards.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

Able to continue operation without additional funding from the State of Oklahoma