Power Of Putnam Raising Awareness Through Dogwood Park Event

Upper Cumberland alcohol abuse and suicide rates among youth rise around the holiday season according to Power of Putnam.

Because of this, Youth Coalition Director Alyssa Battaglia (Buh-Tile-Yuh) will host an awareness event this Sunday at Dogwood Park.

“We will be doing caroling. We will have goody bags, hot cocoa and handouts,” Battaglia said. “We will also have a guest speaker and other coalition members. It’s just an act to spread some Christmas joy, and remind people that there are coalition members that care.”

Battaglia said the Youth Coalition started in 2016 by local high school students, but membership died out. Battaglia said this prevention event is a part of the efforts to bring back the program.

“This Coalition was something the Coalition was definitely proud of,” Battaglia said. “Unfortunately, those kids graduated and it kind of died out, and with COVID especially, it hit us very hard to the point we were losing a little bit of hope of bringing that back. But this year, I was fortunately given the opportunity to start it back up again.”

The event begins at 6:00 p.m. Sunday at Dogwood Park.