Impact Communities

OUR COMMUNITIES NEED YOUR HELP! 

YOUTH IN DALLAS, ELLIS & NAVARRO COUNTIES ARE BEARING THE BRUNT OF OUR SEVERE FUNDING CUTS!

With an 88-year legacy, we are a CRUCIAL non-profit organization serving Dallas, Ellis, Navarro, and Kaufman counties. Despite being designated the 2023 Texas Prevention Organization of the Year, the state funding that allows us to provide services has been cut by 60 percent.

The number 60 is significant because, as a result of this substantial funding cut, communities will experience:

1. 60 percent of the at-risk schools will no longer receive our services.
2. 60 percent of students and adults will not receive ATOD presentations, so schools and school districts will miss out on the training they need to keep up with current substance use trends and prevention strategies. 
3. 60 percent of students and adults will no longer participate in positive alternative activities.

Each year, Impact Communities:

• Serves approximately 12,000 students with prevention education and our Community Coalition Partnership programs. 
• Provides prevention education sequences of eight social-emotional learning lessons for students at the counties' most high-risk schools.
• Guides 85 percent of those students toward increasing their social-emotional skills and completing the program successfully.
• Presents more than 14,000 students and 8,000 adults with an alcohol, tobacco, or other drug (ATOD) presentation and positive alternative activities that reduce the likelihood of using illegal substances.

Due to this severe reduction in funding, we will lose the ability to convene stakeholders who understand prevention and advocate for it regularly in Dallas, Ellis, Kaufman, and Navarro counties for the next five years. 

Do you think we can risk it?

 Youth prevention programs are designed to address the following significant needs within our communities:

• 30 percent of high school students report using alcohol in the past year
• 20 percent of high school students report smoking marijuana in the past year
• 21 percent of high school students say they used any illicit drug in the past year
• 14 percent of 11th graders reported using e-cigarettes in the past year
• 20 percent of students think about suicide “often or a lot”

To remind you, a child's brain is not fully developed until the middle 20s, so any substance ingested is detrimental to healthy brain growth.

We believe the risk is too high and hope that you do too. Can you help us replenish some of our lost funding?