Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 11, 1 November 2008 — Hoops, hot meals and hope for a drug-free community [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hoops, hot meals and hope for a drug-free community

AThanksgiving meal, basketball competition, live music and door prizes are onee again the main attractions of the annual Turkey Shoot. The free event will be hosted by DADDS on Nov. 22 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Ka'iulani Elementary School in Kalihi, where Dads Against Doing Drugs has heeome increasingly visible in its yearround mission of fighting substance abuse and taking a stand against drug dealers. The Turkey Shoot will feature three-on-three teams of youngsters in basketball eompetition. While the hoopsters are working up an appetite, volunteers will serve turkey and all the trhmnings to needy coimnunity nienibers, including the homeless. Turkey Shoot attendance last year hit an all-time high of 400. More than 100 volunteers worked the event, including teens from several publie and private schools. DADDS founder William Malina, who became a community catalyst after serving time in prison, asks interested volunteers to eall 861-0660 or

email daddshawaii@yahoo.com. Sponsors include HEI, Hidden Treasures Ministry, Sgt. John of the Weed and Seed program, Chad Owens and the Hawai'i Football School and OHA. Along with the festivities, Malina said the Turkey Shoot is an opportunity to recruit new members for DADDS, whieh helps fathers become positive role models. "The more there are of us," he says, "the more we are able to do interventions and make it known to the drug dealers that we are working with the poliee to make them paek up and leave our coimnunity." — Liza Simon □

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