Local youth group hopes to prevent underage drinking through stickers

Community Youth in Action partnered with several groups to help prevent underage drinking for this holiday season. The youth group is hoping their eye-catching message will “stick” with the community.

“Young people can not drink without the assistance of an adult,” Becky Leatham, the youth program director for C’YA. “An adult either needs to buy it for them, sell it to them, provide it for them or fail to monitor their own alcohol. It’s the only way teens are getting it.”

Youth volunteers put $8,000 stickers on brown paper bags customers use when buying alcohol from liquor stores. It is called the “Sticker Shock Project.”

“It’s a visual reminder to get our adults to do their share to keep kids safe,” said Leatham.

With help from the Office of Drug Policy and the Idaho Liquor Division, the “Think Twice or Pay the Price” stickers serve as a reminder. If you provide alcohol to minors, you could face up to one-thousand dollars in fines and up to one year in jail.

“Drinking is a really big problem in the media, in our communities and at parties,” said Katie Suciu, a youth volunteer.

The project wants to not only bring attention to the issue of underage drinking to adults, but kids a well.

“When I talk to people at my school, I tell them about what I’ve done with this group,” Suciu said. “I think that’s really cool, and that’s something I’m really proud to be apart of it and say that I was.”

C’YA believe that the best way to address this problem is through community involvement.

This public awareness campaign will be taking place in stores statewide starting Nov. 23.