Our Unbound Grace~Sentinel Farms youth members will be up at the State House on Tuesday, March 18th to testify in House Health and Welfare at 9:45, welcomed into the well at 10:00 and testify again in Senate Health and Welfare at 11:45.We will also have the Ethan Allen Room off the cafeteria set up from 9:00 – noon with information about the Unbound Grace ~ Sentinel Farms programming. We hope you can join us!
The Unbound Grace Youth feel that by sharing their stories they can provide the hard working legislators a front row seat and therefor better insight on how to prevent youth from choosing to take highly addictive drugs like heroin and avoid other increasingly risky and life threatening behaviors in the first place.
Their self composed stories are powerful and honest and although they are nervous they will be reading them aloud to both the House and Senate Committees. While excited to share their ideas in the great marble halls of power – they are doing so because they believe that they can advocate best for themselves and may help shine their light on the simple common sense answer – that strong and caring communities are a benefit to everyone and that youth are in need of feeling like they belong.
The name of the day’s campaign is:
The Common Sense Prudence of Investing in Prevention. A Day of Grace.
Unbound Grace ~ Sentinel Farms health-focused curriculum includes increasing communication skills while practicing respectful and responsible self advocacy within a frame work of love and mutual learning.
We have very high hopes that this youth led story could be the perfect, refreshing follow-up to the previous Vermont focused – nation wide story – that has tattooed Vermont with the notorious title of Heroin Capital of the Nation – with the perfect Vermont Common Sense come back of, “Yes, we do have a problem, and this is how we are getting down to business. The very important issue of opiate drug dependency has our attention and we are attacking it from all angles including increasing accessibility to drug rehabilitation, as well as the most cost effective and life saving measure: preventing drug dependence before it starts.
Unbound Grace ~ Sentinel Farms’ health focused programming re-roots youth back into a caring community enriched with Vermont’s traditional agricultural skills and values. Connecting youth back to the natural joy of creative inquiry is the first step to inviting them to imagine their own gifts and talents, dreams and goals and then simply supporting them as they make the choices to stay on track to achieve them.
UGSF programming can be quite easily be duplicated across Vermont and across the Nation as two things our rural communities have in abundance are small vacant or underused farms and children in need of a caring community.