Zamayah Lewis of Jonesboro-Hodge Elementary joins Jastyn Jordan of Quitman and Kiley Stevenson of Weston as fifth graders from Jackson Parish public schools who were selected as overall winners in the D.A.R.E. essay contest sponsored by the Jackson Parish Sheriff’s Office.
The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program (or D.A.R.E.) was founded in 
1983 and was solely focused on teaching the dangers of drugs and alcohol on the body and family. As times have changed, D.A.R.E has added more lessons to the program to help prepare students for what life throws at them. To today, D.A.R.E now stands for, Define, Assess, Respond, and Evaluate.
At the end of each program, for students to successfully complete the program, they must complete their workbook and a D.A.R.E. essay. The D.A.R.E essay must include topics taught in the program, how they have used Define, Assess, Respond and Evaluate methods and how they plan to use everything they have learned in the future. Once students have completed the essays, there is an essay picked out of each homeroom (three 5th grade classes per school).
See below for Lewis’s award winning essay.
My name is Zamayah Lewis and I am going to tell you how dare changed me. D.A.R.E. teaches how not to do drugs and not to smoke and don’t drink. DA.R.E. is a place to express your thoughts if you are feeling depressed or having suicidal thoughts or if you are alone. You get to tell people what you did at home, what decision did we make, or if we made the right decision. It teaches how not to go down the wrong path in life.
D.A.R.E. teaches you how not to bully and it also teaches you not to drink because you can get dizzy from it and it can also give you memory loss. It can also cause you to have a wreck if you go out driving. D.A.R.E teaches about resistance like if your friend says, “ I got some drugs do you want one?” You say no and let’s do something else to take your mind off of drugs. You can tell your friend what can happen if he or she keeps on with what they are doing because it can get addictive and you could end up with years in prison; so, if you do not want that do not do drugs.
D.A.R.E. means define, assess, respond, and evaluate . In D.A.R.E. I also learned about bullying. For example, one day at school by accident, I spilled milk on the rich and popular girl’s jacket named Rayna because I did not see her because my friend and I were talking about the Halloween contest party. After the spilled milk, the popular girl said, “You are never going to be in that contest and you are not going to win .” She asked me, “What are you going to be for the contest?” I told her, “ I was going to be a hot air balloon”. The popular girl had a paper bag that she was going to throw away. She said , “if you need the paper bag you could get it out of the trash can!” After school, I happened to run into her while shopping at the dollar store. She said, “Wait please , don’t tell me that you shop at the dollar store?” I said yes, “I was picking up some items for my outfit, “ Rayna was just at the expensive Halloween store . She said this is her outfit it costs $200 dollars, it’s something you could not afford. I said to her, your outfit is pretty and she said to me, “good luck with the contest.” It was the night of the contest and they were about to call the winner. Ms. Jacobs said, “ This is the moment we all have been waiting for, the winner is Zamayah.
The point to my story is to never let a bully hold you back from what you are doing or reaching a goal. Because bullying can have an affect on you and can lead to you harming yourself.
Zamayah Lewis
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