A Western Iowa man has been named national director of a program aimed at getting kids to stay away from drugs. Kent Gade an Atlantic businessman was recently appointed to lead the Elk’s Club National Drug Awareness Program. Gade has been a member of the Elks for over 26-years, and is just the third director of the program since its inception in 1983. He says it’s become his passion. The Elk’s organization has distributed over 15-million pieces of drug awareness material to schools and the general public. In addition, Gade says their volunteers have worked over 400-thousand hours to spread their message of the dangers of drugs. Gade says their material is the best around and they give it to young people at no cost. He says one of the ways they do that is through the use of trailers. Gade says they have over 80 trailors that travel to various events around the country to distribute drug awareness material. He says the trailors have logged more than 180 thousand miles.Gade says the message seems to be getting through, but there’s still a lot to be done. He says while there are no solid answers on how to make the drug problem go away, no one person, group or organization can do it alone, but a united effort between parents, schools, the community and civic organizations will make a difference.
