Drug free community coalition prevention for underage person - file name: project abstract the "saving lives puerto rico drug free community coalition" (SLPRDFCC) was founded in 2024 but its roots…

The Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded Cuida TU Esencia Inc. $125,000 under the Drug-Free Communities Support Program Grants (CFDA 93.276) on July 1, 2026.

Cuida TU Esencia Inc. serves as the administering entity for the Saving Lives Puerto Rico Drug Free Community Coalition, a youth substance abuse prevention initiative operating in high-drug-trafficking and high-crime areas across a 15 square-kilometer region spanning the Carolina and San Juan municipalities. The coalition targets youth ages 12 to 18 across poor neighborhoods in the surrounding area, where youth face exposure to underage drinking, marijuana, prescription pills, opioids, fentanyl, and other drugs due to easy access to these substances. The coalition's prevention strategy addresses both marijuana and alcohol use among youth while maintaining heightened focus on opioid overdose prevention and linkage to aftercare services.

The award funds community coalition activities through June 30, 2031. The Drug-Free Communities Support Program establishes and strengthens collaborations among community coalitions, public and private nonprofit agencies, and federal, state, local, and tribal governments to prevent and reduce substance abuse among youth. Recipient organizations must demonstrate prior coalition work of at least six months, meet composition requirements, ensure substantial community volunteer effort, maintain nonprofit or government status, develop sustainability strategies, and provide 100 to 150 percent cash or in-kind match funding.

Place of performance is Puerto Rico.

Drug free community coalition prevention for underage person - file name: project abstract the "saving lives puerto rico drug free community coalition" (SLPRDFCC) was founded in 2024 but its roots go back to 2020, when the original members recognizing the need for prevention after-care and for linkage with prevention at the front-end of the service continuum, the SLPRDFCC concentrates its services in the highest drug trafficking and crime communities in a 15 square kilometer area in the carolina and SAN juan municipalities, serving the youth from all "barrios, barriadas Y residenciales",(poor neighborhoods) in the surrounding area where the community youth are expose to underage drinking, marihuana use and to all other drugs like prescribed pills, opioids/fentanyl, among other drugs, because of the easy access of this substances. The SLPRDFCC mission statement is: "a rural/urban coalition that with collaboration of communities leaders is dedicated to saving lives through the reduction/prevention of youth substance abuse including use/abuse of drugs and underage drinking in the SAN juan & carolina communities". The SLPRDFCC chose to adopt the "saving lives puerto rico drug free community coalition" name based on the combination of "salvando vidas POR sobredosis DE opioides", (preventing opioid overdose deaths) principal and the drug free prevention philosophy that leads the coalition efforts on a daily basis, but "chose its name in honor of those children, family and community members of those who died of an opioid overdose in recent times, even when the coalition main focus is to prevent the use of marihuana, alcohol and other drugs among the children IT serves, with so many opioid overdose deaths occurring daily in our communities IT is impossible for the coalition to overlook this reality and as a result the coalition is committed to help save as many lives of the opioid epidemic as possible. The coalition targets youth ages 12 to 18, (G6 to G12), who are at high-risk and live in low-income communities in the municipalities of SAN juan and carolina, PR. The main goal is to reduce the use of alcohol, marijuana and other drugs among the young, some of the activities the coalition focuses on include: limiting access to alcohol, marijuana and other drugs by working with law enforcement, increasing surveillance of hotpots; strengthen compliance with licensed alcohol providers; raising awareness of the coalition sector's role in prevention, including positioning impact products, preparing youth to train providers and expand the availability of parent and peer training to increase awareness of the risk of harm from alcohol, marijuana and other drugs. Also change the culture to increase perceived rates of disapproval from parents and peers by providing information and education. Strategies include campaigns like: family day, addressing youth protective factors by expanding the number of safe havens for youth, change the consequences, collaborating with the LEA to increase surveillance of hotpots for transactions, enforce ordinances, and promote better lighting and conditions in parks and other places to reduce pollution. Our coalition has been very active educating the communities we serve by providing workshops and trainings to the state police, municipal police, students, school administration personnel and faculty, individuals with a drug use disorder who are at risk of dying of an opioid overdose, among others, on different subjects like: new emerging drugs, the risks of vaping, devastating effects of use fentanyl, abuse of prescribe medication, how to applied narcan, etc