Why SOBER GRAD NIGHT is so important...
Currently hundreds of high schools celebrate graduation with this life-saving program. This party is designated as drug and alcohol free and those attending are welcome to stay all night to celebrate. To keep the party safe and sober no “in and out” privileges are extended.
We held our first successful Sober Grad Night party on May 28, 2010 for VDLHS graduating seniors. We feel that if one alcohol related arrest, injury or worse yet, death is prevented by this alcohol free celebration then the extensive effort to plan and fund it will have been well worth it – both for our Vista graduates and the community in general. If we can gather the resources to make the VDLHS Safe & Sober Grad Night spectacular, more students will attend - more students will spend the evening of their graduation safe and sober.
A bit more information and some unfortunate facts (obtained from the M.A.D.D. website)
More than 17,000 are killed every year in alcohol related crashes. One person dead every thirty minutes. One person injured almost every minute.
17,419 people died last year in preventable alcohol related tragedies accounting for 41 percent of total traffic fatalities. This makes three years in a row that alcohol-related traffic fatalities have increased.
2.6 million teenagers don't know that a person can die from an alcohol overdose. (CSAP, 1996) During a typical weekend, an average of one teenager dies each hour in a car crash. Nearly fifty percent of those crashes involved alcohol. (NHTSA, 1999)
Based on the latest mortality data available, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for people from 15 to 20 years old.