There’s a group of students at Niles North who dedicate their free time to campaign for their fellow teens to make good life decisions. Throughout the year they organize and successfully pull off a wide variety of efforts, including Kick Butt- a no-smoking campaign, KISS (Keep It Safe and Sober), held during Prom, No Texting and Driving and many more. They develop behavior and attitude surveys for students to take, and make posters, flyers and even videos to support the different endeavors they fund all year.

” S.A.D.D is important because it is vital to make students our age aware of the destructive decisions they make on a daily basis,” vice-president and senior Shahzmeen Hussain said.

The club recently completed the In The Know campaign, for which S.A.D.D. members prepared and implemented a survey to gauge student perceptions of drug use percentages in their school. In turn, S.A.A.D. members corrected students’ misconceptions by distributing information cards with actual facts about teen drug use.

“Every student that takes the survey is automatically placed in a raffle for a $15 Starbucks gift card,”, S.A.A.D. co- sponsor Shama Joshi said. “The winner will be revealed on the morning video announcements.”

In April, club members will be working on the KISS campaign for Prom. “It’s the biggest campaign of the year and, of course, the most fun to plan,” senior Abdul Shaikh said. “There’s a big banner for students going to Prom to sign and pledge that they will Keep It Safe and Sober (KISS) during and after Prom.”

These students are hard working and have fun while they work. If you’re interested in being a part of S.A.D.D., stop by one of their meetings which are held every other Monday in the Guidance counselor conference room. Upcoming club meetings are April 1, 15 and 29.