With the second program for Project: Connect the Dots coming Saturday, Mount Airy Middle School students have been asked to help out.

“Jamie Edwards from Drug Free North Carolina approached me and asked if the students would like to do a public service announcement,” said Jeannie Noble, teacher and Students Against Destructive Decisions club advisor.

The students agreed to take part in Project Night at Reeves Community Center by filming a public service announcement. Courtney Collins and Madison Hartness, eighth graders, wrote the announcements, both a visual script and an audio announcement.

About 10 students were involved in the effort, which took place on a Saturday at the school and at one of the student’s house. Brett Hunter helped with the filming and staging for the announcement.

This is the second set of public service announcements created for Project: Connect the Dots. The first set was aired at the Downtown Cinema during the kick-off. Those announcements were aimed more towards high school students and the consequences of making bad choice involving alcohol and drugs. This time around, the focus is on the parents.

“It’s about the effects of parents’ drinking on their children,” said Hartness.

“It’s about how parents’ drinking leads kids to drinking at some point,” added Collins. “We want to get the point across that it affects more young people than you would think. A lot of them have rough lives. It’s from our point of view showing it can happen to anyone, it doesn’t matter what age level.”

The students tied the campaign into the school’s Red Ribbon Week, which is designed to raise awareness about the dangers of alcohol, drugs and tobacco.

They created “bodies of information” at the school. These “bodies” were taped outlines of people on the floor with a fact about drugs, alcohol or tobacco use in teens taped inside them.

“It wouldn’t have been as effective without the bodies,” said Collins of the facts which raised some questions as the group was setting them up during parent-teacher conferences.

For the students working on this campaign, the information they discovered was shocking.

“Some of the figures are very shocking. People don’t realize the effects,” said Hartness.

“Parents don’t realize that drinking’s going to affect their children’s lives,” said Collins.

The students will also be involved in creating four audio public service announcements for the next Project: Connect the Dots event.

“To me, the most impressive thing was working with this group of students. They really are leaders, it’s not just lip service,” said Noble of the students taking the reins on this project.

Contact Morgan Wall at mwall@mtairynews.com or 719-1929.