Richland D.A.R.E. students promise to be generation to fight gun violence
The sound of nearly 75 elementary students yelling “Yes, Sir” to Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott echoed in the auditorium when he asked them if they would say no to guns and stay away from violence.
“We have too much violence out here in our community,” Lott told the group of children. “We have too many people who got guns. I need your generation to change that.”
The resounding affirmative to stay away from gun violence came from a group of fifth-grade students at Pine Grove Elementary School off Broad River Road.
They shouted at the top of their lungs during a Thursday graduation from D.A.R.E., the national program to steer children away from drug use and violence that was started in the 1980s and ramped up in South Carolina in the 1990s. Parents, grandparents and other guards attended the ceremony, which showed the fifth graders skills in dance and song.
At the graduation, Richland School District One Superintendent Craig Witherspoon told the class that what they learned in D.A.R.E. they could take with them throughout life.
Lott, who sits on the D.A.R.E. national board of directors, is a firm believer in the program and its effectiveness to guide children to become adults of good character. His department coordinates the D.A.R.E. program in South Carolina.
“The education part is what’s going to solve” community violence, Lott said. “That’s why we push D.A.R.E. so much. . . . I see that as a long-term solution.”
The emphasis of D.A.R.E. has shifted from the 1990s, when the first elementary school students went through the program, Lott said. Then the focus was on keeping kids away from drugs. Now the focus is teaching young people to make good decisions when it comes to potentially dangerous or criminal situations.
With a national rise in gun violence and Richland County’s own struggles, firearms and violence are at the center of the good decision making that the D.A.R.E. program teaches, Lott said.
“We have to create a generation that doesn’t believe in the gun and violence,” he said. “If we can start with them we can really make an impact.”
As anyone in the audience could attest, the group of yelling fifth graders were quite impactful already.