As many of you are aware, funding for the State Grants portion of the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities (SDFSC) program was eliminated in FY 2010. As a result, the substance abuse prevention infrastructure that exists in schools throughout the country will be severely cut, if not eliminated on June 30, 2010 when the program's funding ends. State governments will not be able to replace the federal SDFSC funding, and therefore most schools will no longer have the funding or capacity to implement substance abuse prevention/intervention programming.
It is for these reasons that Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is urging her colleagues to restore funding for this critical program in the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Act. In a Dear Colleague letter sent out on March 31st, Senator Gillibrand asks her fellow Senators to join her in urging the Senate Appropriations Committee to restore $295 million to the State Grants portion of the SDFSC program in FY 2011.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Use CADCA's CapWiz system to fax your Senators and ask them to sign on to the Dear Colleague sign on letter in support of restoring the State Grants portion of the SDFSC program.
TIMING
It is imperative that you fax your Senators IMMEDIATELY, as the deadline for them to sign on to the letter is April 7th.
CADCA's fax system allows you to automatically fax CADCA's sample letter on this issue to your legislators from its website. To send faxes to your legislators, go to http://capwiz.com/cadca/home/.
If you would like to personalize your letter with examples from your state/community, please emaildkurosky@cadca.org for a MS Word version of the sample letter.
