LEDD passes baton to Sheriff’s office
The Strand Village Project’s #thrive out-of-school program leadership have officially passed the baton to the LaSalle Parish Sheriff’s Office, signifying the popular programs will continue well into the future.
On Monday, August 17, a special #thrive Finale Celebration was held at the Jena High School Auditorium where members of the LaSalle Economic Development District (LEDD), the originator of the #thrive programs, instructors from past camps and members of the community came together to celebrate the success of the program and to witness the transformation of leadership for future camps.
Under this new direction and a new name—Camp Thrive, the LPSO will continue the more than six years of work and positive impact on the lives of nearly 1,000 area youth, challenging them to find their “natural high” and pledge to stay drug and alcohol free.
“It is with great pride that we pass the torch to the LPSO under the direction of the new Opioid Task Force,” said Cynthia Cockerham, Executive Director of Camp Thrive Community Development for LEDD, who served as project director. “They will continue to inspire our youth to live life well—drug, alcohol and opioid free, as they identify sparks and foster the developmental assets to equip them with skills, courage, resiliency and grit as they make lifelong friends, hobbies and possibly choose career paths along the way.”
PROGRAM FUTURE
Sheriff Lane Windham shared during the event that the end of the current # thrive program came at the exact right time for them to continue it since the LaSalle Parish Police Jury and the LaSalle Parish Sheriff’s Office received funding through the Opioid Abatement Settlement Fund, which was part of a large settlement between major drug companies and state and local governments.
“The abatement money coming in has to be used for either education prevention or some type of anti-drug or anti-pill foundation, so the #thrive program fits perfectly,” said Sheriff Windham. “Through this fund, I hope we’ll be able to have the #thrive program continue to the year 2041, which is a very good deal.”
DARE Officer Deputy Jenny Parker also expressed her enthusiasm in the continuation of the #thrive program since she has served as an instructor and site coach for several camps through the years, and she looks forward to serving Camp Thrive as program director.
“I love the #thrive program. It is a great complement to the DARE program, and I see so much potential in continuing it,” Parker said. “We will keep teaching youth to find their spark, develop their natural high and to learn other ways to make better decisions and stay away from drugs. We plan to continue some of the same camps, just under a different name. I’m very excited about the future of Camp Thrive.”
PROGRAM FRAMEWORK
The Strand Village Project #thrive is a community development project of LEDD and was funded in part through two grants from The Rapides Foundation totaling $325,000—a Substance and Alcohol Abuse Prevention Program Grant for $300,000 and a Healthy Behaviors Mini Grant for $25,000.
Dallas Russell, a program officer with The Rapides Foundation who has worked with #thrive since its beginning, said #thrive has created such amazing opportunities for young people to build skills, develop supportive relationships, and stay engaged in positive activities, and what excites her now is that the impact of the program will continue beyond the life of the grant.
“Thanks to Cynthia’s vision and persistence, #thrive has found a path forward and will continue creating opportunities for young people for years to come,” Russell said. “Congratulations to everyone who helped make this possible, especially the young people at the heart of this work, along with the staff, instructors, volunteers, families and community partners who supported the program along the way.”
During the event, Cockerham expressed her appreciation to Russell and the Foundation for their years of support and partnership with LEDD to make #thrive a reality for LaSalle Parish youth.
“As we look forward to what’s to come in 2027, let’s do so with gratefulness to The Rapides Foundation who partnered with us to impact our youth for the better,” Cockerham said. “And also to LEDD for allowing me to ‘think outside the box’ and invest in our youth—our future business leaders and elected officials— and use my background in education and decade of experience in 4-H youth development work to dream this thing called #thrive.”
PROGRAM ORIGINS
Cockerham explained that three main resources fueled the program through her dream to help youth—NaturalHigh.org, The Search Institute and an article entitled, “Iceland Knows How to Stop Teen Substance Abuse But the Rest of the World isn’t Listening.”
“I was seeing some lack of resiliency in our youth when dealing with the stress of everyday life with self-medicating being a popular solution, so I dug my heels in and immersed myself in the research,” she said. “The Search Institute states that youth who find a spark do better in school and that the more of their 40 developmental assets a teen possesses, the better equipped they are for real life and Natural High is a drug prevention nonprofit that inspires and empowers youth to pursue their talents and goals instead of substance use. Through these discoveries, I was inspired to bring an art and technology after-school program to our youth in LaSalle Parish.”
The first #thrive camps were offered in January 2022 after a two-year delay due to COVID-19. To date, there have been a total of 49 camps held across LaSalle Parish with over 40 staff members involved and hundreds of youth in attendance. The program started as after-school camps on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 12-18 days, but when the school system switched to a four-day week, it transitioned into an out-of-school program for 8-10 days on Mondays and during school breaks.
The camps featured a range of subjects such as theater, drone photography, AI, graphic design, robotics, painting and drawing, Python coding, creative writing, playing ukelele, stop motion photography, book binding and more. Nearly all camps involved work on iPad Pros.
Besides instruction in the camp’s subject, during each #thrive camp session, the site coach teaches a short lesson from NaturalHigh.org and youth leave camp understanding data such as that youth that begin to drink at age 13 have a 45% chance of becoming an alcoholic and that young adults that begin to drink at age 21 have a 7% chance of becoming an alcoholic.
SINCERE GRATITUDE
Cockerham thanked all who have been involved with #thrive, past and present, from funders and staff to youth and their families, as well as those in the future who will support Camp Thrive.
“I dare to dream that the new Thrive camps in LaSalle Parish will become a model program that can be replicated for youth anywhere and funded by Opioid Task Forces as an action plan for opioid prevention,” Cockerham said. “I would like to thank Sheriff Lane Windham and Deputy Jenny Parker for taking the first steps in this new adventure and for sharing this vision to help youth develop the skills and courage to live life well.”
SIGN UP FOR FALL CAMPS
Also announced at the event was the fall camp line-up. For Camp Thrive, their camp for fall will be Graphic Design: Design with a Message, which starts in September and will be held from 9 a.m. to noon in Jena. Youth will learn graphic design in marketing through individual and collaborative art projects. To enroll, email jparker@lasalleso.com The 50th #thrive camp, #thrive
Arts Painting & Drawing: Points of View Camp, starts in September and will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. in Jena. Youth will learn about painting and drawing points of view for buildings, landscapes and more. To enroll, visit www.agreaterlasalle.com Both camps are for 5th-12th graders and will be held over eight (8) sessions on Mondays, September 14 to October 26 and on Tuesday, October 6 at the LEDD Office (1850B Second Street) in Jena. Also for both camps, the instructor is Kim Aldrich and the site coach is Cheryl Otwell. Enrollment is free. Space is limited.
For more information, contact Deputy Parker at jparker@lasalleso.com, or call the sheriff’s office at (318) 992-2151.
