01940 Summer 2021

SUMMER 2021 | 25
ABOVE, continued from page 23
Doherty said they included members
of student council and sports teams
in the video, and encouraged them
to mention parts of their lives that
encourage them to make healthy choices.
“Our hope with this is that it acts as
a role model for the middle school and
younger youth to really say, ‘This is how
high-school leaders represent themselves
and this is how they really stay above the
influence and make healthy choices,’”
Greene said.
Lynnfield Middle School health
teacher Matt Angelo said his department
is planning to show the video in school,
adding that he thinks it would be more
beneficial to have that message coming
from students rather than teachers.
Carmela Dalton, an AHL coalition
member who runs the Think of Michael
Foundation, echoed this sentiment,
saying it is important to get young people
involved in order to foster peer-to-peer
conversation.
Ultimately there were more than 600
participants, a lot of them students, at
the “Night of Hope” event cosponsored
by AHL. Dalton said it is evident that
the message is getting out there and that
the kids are responding.
From a parental perspective, Stacey
Dahlstedt — a member of AHL and
the Lynnfield School Committee —
said the programs and workshops have
also ensured that families talk to their
children early and often about substance
use, misuse and abuse.
“It’s kind of the unfortunate truth,
but children are exposed to and using
and abusing substances certainly more so
than when I was growing up,” Dahlstedt
said. “This campaign really helped
provide tools and resources to parents to
be able to speak with their children.”
After speaking with students from her
School Committee position, she said the
youth council for Above the Influence
has been phenomenal in jumpstarting
this outreach during a pandemic, and
there are more great things to come.
Eighth-grade students and
representatives of AHL at the middle
school, Emma Rose and Ella Hayman,
said they participated in the Above the
Influence campaign because they wanted
to do something to better the community
and help other students.
“It’s good to spread the message
around, so when we tell our friends what
we’re doing they’re interested, even if
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they’re not actually coming to meetings,”
Hayman said.
The Above the Influence middleschool
project in Angelo’s health class
asked the eighth-grade students to
choose something they are passionate
about being “above.”
For Rose’s project, she wrote about
how she is going to be above people
telling her what she can and can’t do,
including her hobbies and interests.
Hayman’s project was about being
above stereotypes, such as people saying,
“You can’t do this because you’re a girl.”
“I included pictures of women in
history who have made a difference
and have done something important,”
Hayman said, “Just to show that you can
do it and people can’t tell you can’t just
because of a certain thing about you.”
Angelo said he was “kind of blown
away by how much eighth graders had to
say and how passionate they were about a
wide variety of things.”
This campaign hosted events in the
spring and there are plans to continue
the tradition next spring.
Sallade said she hopes to continue
seeing the campaign grow and spread
throughout the community, leaving a
positive impact on many.
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