A group of Minnesota State University students is hoping to raise alcohol awareness with their class project, which will depend on community participation.
The project is a series of discussions about alcohol use that will start tonight at the Coffee Hag on Riverfront Drive.
Kimberly Allison, Blue Earth County’s Safe Communities coordinator, said she has been working with the Minnesota State University sociology students to organize the forum. They’re hoping to have a variety of people participating in the events, which will start with a discussion about what the Blue Earth County Safe Communities Coalition is and the county’s ranking in the state as one of the most deadliest for alcohol-related crashes.
“The goal is to get youth more engaged in the community as social change units and to get them to the table to discuss issues,” Allison said. “We need them to help make cultural changes that will get us off that deadliest list. That’s why we partnered with the sociology class.”
The coalition is a partnership that includes the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Department, the Mankato Department of Public Safety and the State Patrol, she said. Each discussion will start with an 18-minute State Patrol video about fatal crashes involving alcohol. The video includes statements from victims and people who caused crashes. It also has graphic images from crash scenes.
The Coffee Hag was chosen as a location for the forum because Allison and the students wanted people from many segments of the community to attend. They were concerned a location on or near campus would discourage involvement by people who aren’t students.
“We don’t want this to be college kids versus the community,” Allison said. “We want to bridge that gap and get a wide variety of people involved. The broader group we have in terms of diversity, the better we will be able to address this problem.”
She said the students involved have worked hard, so she’s expecting the forum to be successful.
“We need to support these youth and the state’s initiative to make the community safer,” Allison said.
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