Payne Announces $250K in Drug-Free Communities Grants to Orange, Rahway

Press Release

Congressman Donald M. Payne, Jr. (NJ-10) today announced the awarding of $250,000 in Drug-Free Communities (DFC) Support Program continuation grants to community coalitions in New Jersey's 10th Congressional District. Administered by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the DFC Program provides grants to community coalitions to strengthen the infrastructure among local partners to create and sustain a reduction in local youth substance use.

"These grants provide critical support to local coalitions working hard to improve the health and safety of our communities by reducing drug use," said Congressman Payne, Jr. "Substance abuse tears apart families and ruins lives, and it's essential that we enable efforts to prevent and reduce the damage caused by drugs. Investing in our youth through these community support programs is money well-spent."

According to 2013 data, every day in 2012, an estimated 3,700 youth between the ages of 12 and 17 used drugs for the first time. The DFC Program, created by the Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997, mobilizes communities to prevent youth substance use. DFC-funded coalitions engage multiple sectors of the community and employ a variety of environmental strategies to address local substance use problems. In FY 2015, $86 million funded 188 new grants, 486 continuation grants for coalitions already in a five-year cycle, 20 new DFC Mentoring grants, and 3 continuation DFC Mentoring grants.

The 2014 DFC National Evaluation Report concluded that among middle and high school students across the nation, DFC-funded community coalitions consistently have lower rates of past 30-day youth substance use.

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