Dearest FCA Parents,

We started our first Huddle of the year with a wake-up call to our students and FCA parents in attendance at Tuesday’s Huddle. Please take just a minute to read Ernesto’s story in full as you may gain insight from his tragedy as it has been rumored that some NHS students in ALL grades are engaging is this very dangerous and deadly behavior.

Northwood High School students had the privilege of hearing from guest speaker Ernesto DePalma as he shared about the tragic loss of his 18 year old son, Devan, to an accidental drug overdose. Ernesto shared how his son Devan struggled with substance abuse throughout his teen years. The gateway drug of choice for him was Marijuana. As his addiction worsened Devan graduated to more dangerous drug activity to achieve the same rush, thinking he was young and invincible. Unfortunately, Devan attended a current trendy party that kids refer to as a Skittle party or Trail mix party. Essentially, teenagers bring random prescription drugs taken from their parents’ medicine cabinet or even donate their own ADD and ADHD medication to be randomly selected from a bowl to experience a surprise rush that can sometimes lead to an emergency room visit or death as in Devan’s case. Ernesto proceeded to give some sobering drug statistics and gave a stern warning to our students to avoid this behavior at all cost. You could have heard a pin drop as the students were hanging on to every word Ernesto spoke. He ended his message with a beautiful song his mother wrote which received a loud applause as it was a song of the hope we have in Jesus.

Please be in prayer for Ernesto as he finds comfort and purpose in sharing his story to educate students of the dangers of drug use. We have attached pictures from the day.

Lastly, NHS is hosting an FCA movie night tonight, Saturday, January 22^nd in the school theater. We sent out the flyer for this event this morning, hopefully you got it. Please click on the website below to see the trailer for this movie. We hope after reading Ernesto’s story you will encourage and support our efforts to show this movie. It addresses so many relevant teenage issues that will give our students hope and constructive tools to handle peer pressure and addiction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o56pazEh-Q

A BIG thank you to the following families:

Pizza donations:

Baldwin

Pierce

Aicher

Holder

Locklear

Baked goods:

Skelly

MacDonald

Aviles

Bowers

May

Please forgive us if we’ve forgotten anyone!!

Our next Huddle is Tuesday, February 1st. If you would like to send a donation to help pay for this Huddle, please make your check out to FCA and send it to Monica Younger, 26 Rincon, Irvine, 92620.

Thank you again and again for supporting this incredible ministry at NHS!!!! See you at the movie tonight!!

Blessings.....