Congressman Tom Emmer announced today that MEADA (Mentorship, Education and Drug Awareness) was awarded $125,000 in grant funding through the federal Drug-Free Communities Support Program.

Emmer released a statement praising the efforts of MEADA, which was created in 2004 as a direct result of the methamphetamine epidemic – “methamphetamine” was replaced by “mentorship” in the acronym a few years ago.

Emmer praised the work MEADA has done over the past 16 years and said the $125,000 grant would be very beneficial to continue the work MEADA has done for the youth of Wright County.

“Seeing the outstanding work taking place in Wright County to combat drug abuse in young adults is inspiring and I hope this significant investment will allow them to continue these efforts,” Emmer said. “I am grateful to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for this strong investment in Wright County.”

Wright County Attorney Tom Kelly, who serves as the Chair of MEADA and has been involved with the group since its inception, said the grant will go a long way to help MEADA place more of an emphasis on the mentoring aspect of the group.

“We are making a concerted effort on mentoring our youth and working with our schools on drug/alcohol prevention and education,” Kelly said. “This grant will allow us to move in this direction. We are not going to solve the drug/alcohol issues facing our society simply by arresting and prosecuting. We need prevention and educational programs and this grant will help in our efforts. We are both thankful and grateful we were a recipient of the Drug-Free Communities Support Program grant.”

MEADA was formed as a grassroots organization that brought people from several different portions of the community together to fight a common enemy. Once regulations were tightened on the primary ingredients needed to manufacture meth, the focus switched to include mentoring programs for local youth. MEADA consists of parents, students, school personnel, law enforcement, county agencies, Wright County governmental departments, faith communities and municipalities.

Wright County Board of Commissioners Chair Chris Husom praised the efforts of Wright County Public Health employees Ellie Vanasse, Jacob Anson and Becky Graham for the hard work they put in to write up the grant proposal and help successfully meet the criteria required to be awarded the grant.

“I want to commend our Public Health staff for getting this accomplished,” Husom said. “The had to bring a variety of people from different parts of the community to join us and help get this grant process moving forward. It really broadened the scope of MEADA.”

To see the release from Emmer’s office, click here: https://emmer.house.gov/press-releases?id=BA9FDE60-9AA8-4E79-95F1-7419BC85BCFA.

To learn more about MEADA, click here: https://meada.net/.