By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
If you see Mike Halfacre or John Ekdahl with a libation between now and April 16, be sure to slap them with detention.
The mayors of Fair Haven and Rumson, respectively, are two of many adults in their towns who’ve signed a teetotaler’s pledge for the first two weeks of April at the request of students of Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School.
Aimed to spread awareness of the dangers of alcohol, the pledge has been delivered by students to local leaders, including mayors and police chiefs, and their parents, asking them to get on the wagon for two weeks as part of Alcohol Awareness Month.
The students, from the school’s Peer Leaders and Straight Edge groups, say they’re rejecting the old “do as I say, not as I do” axiom.
“The powerful thing about signing this pledge is that our parents and other adults are always telling us not to drink, and yet they continue to drink,” student Jack Wise said in a release from the school. “If they sign the pledge and are able to stop, they are giving us a good example and proving that it is possible.”
The effort isn’t meant to portray the adults who signed the pledge as dipsomaniacs, but rather, to assess what role alcohol plays in their lives, and that it’s a choice, not necessity, the release said.
The councils in both Fair Haven and Rumson have passed resolutions declaring April Alcohol Awareness Month, and administrators of R-FH, local police chiefs, parents and the two boroughs’ mayors all have signed the pledge not to drink between April 1 and April 14.
If you want to sign the pledge, you can do so by emailing the school’s student assistance counselor Suzanne Fico.
